b'AjUiAl  0  M^  !Xud,uwi. 


^\/UTr.  ^^l 


IN  CASTLE  AND  CABIN 


Talks  in  Ireland  in  1887 


GEORGE  PELLEW,  A.M.,  LL.B. 

OF  THE   SUFFOLK    BAR,   MASSACHUSETTS 


THIRD  EDITION 


NEW  YORK  &  LONDON 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S    SONS 

%,\t  ^nitkirbochcr  |1r£ss 

1889 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

GEORGE  PELLEV/ 
i883 


Press  of 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York 


CONTENTS. 

Preface  


IN  TROD  UCTION. 

The  Agrarian  Agitation  and  the  Land  Acts     ....  I 

PART    I. 

IN  LEINSTER. 

A  Meeting  of  a  Club  in  Dublin         ......  19 

The  Lord  Mayor 24 

A  Unionist       .........  27 

A  Dublin  Business  Man 33 

A  Fenian •         •  37 

A  Catholic  Professor        ,         .         .         .         .         .         .         .41 

A  Pessimistic  Farmer       ........  44 

A  Prosperous  Farmer       ........  45 

Talks  in  West  Meath 5° 

In  a  Smoking-Room  in  County  Carlow    .....  56 

A  County  Carlow  Landlord      .......  61 

A  Miller 67 

A  Nationalist  Leader  in  County  Kilkenny       ....  68 

A  Kilkenny  Manufacturer        .......  74 

PART    IL 

IN  MUNSTER. 

A  Cork  Nationalist 78 

A  Boycotted  Farmer  in  County  Cork        .....  80 

A  "  Plan  of  Campaign  "  Estate        ......  89 

A  Gentleman  Farmer  in  County  Cork      .....  96 

An  Estate  in  County  Waterford        ......  98 


2057984 


iv  CONTENTS. 

A  Waterford  Farmer 105 

Tipperary  Farmers            ........  106 

A  Tipperary  Land  Agent         .......  109 

Driving  with  a  Magistrate  in  Tipperary  .....  112 

A  Tipperary  Landlord     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .117 

A  Unionist  Priest 127 

National  Leaguers  at  Killarney 132 

Kerry  Outrages 133 

A  Nationalist  Editor  in  Kerry          ......  140 

A  Kerry  Land  Agent        ........  143 

After  Eviction — Herbartstown  and  Bodyke      ....  147 

PART   III. 

IN    CONNAUGHT. 

Why  Galway  Wants  Home  Rule 155 

Walking  in  Connemara    ........  158 

W^hat  They  Say  at  Clifden 175 

Jottings  in  Westport  and  Sligo         .         .         .         .         .         .187 

Connaught  Land-Leaguers       .......  183 

Jottings  in  Westport  and  Sligo         .         .         .         .         .         .187 

A  Day  with  a  Popular  Land  Agent           .....  195 

A  Day  and  a  Night  with  Nationalists  at  Ballinasloe         .         .  203 

A  "  Plan  of  Campaign  "  Town        ......  210 

PART    IV. 

IN   ULSTER. 

Gweedore — an  Eviction  .         .         .         .         .         .         .219 

About  Falcarragh     .........  228 

With  a  Drummer  in  Donegal            ......  232 

A  Manufacturer  in  County  Tyrone            .....  240 

Chance  Acquaintances  at  Dungannon       .....  243 

Some  Belfast  Merchants  .         .         .         .         .         .         -251 

Some  Belfast  Professional  Men         ......  272 

Some  Country  Nationalists .  282 

Some  Orangemen     .........  289 

Conclusion 296 


PREFACE. 


It  is  the  general  belief  that  a  change  in  the  social  and 
political  condition  of  Ireland  must  soon  be  accomplished, 
a  change  so  fundamental  as  to  be  properly  called  a  revo- 
lution. The  system  of  "  landlordism  "  is  to  be  superseded, 
we  are  told,  by  "  peasant  proprietorship,"  the  govern- 
ment of  Great  Britain  by  Home  Rule.  Such  changes 
may,  perhaps,  be  effected  without  bloodshed,  but  not, 
certainly,  without  intense  excitement.  The  excitement 
that  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  old  parties  has  created  two 
new  parties,  the  Home  Rulers  and  the  Unionists,  and 
that  in  Ireland  nicknames  the  Unionists  "traitors  "  and 
the  Home  Rulers  "  rebels,"  must,  to  some  degree,  blind 
men's  eyes  and  deafen  their  ears.  The  questions  about 
to  be  solved  in  Ireland,  the  necessity  or  the  reverse  of 
landlordism,  and  the  proper  limitation  of  local  indepen- 
dence, involve  principles  that  are  at  the  root  of  all  society 
and  government,  and  claim  the  interest  of  serious-minded 
citizens  in  any  country.  Especially  do  these  questions 
deserve  the  careful  attention  of  the  American  people, 
since  Irish  politics  perpetually  exercise  no  indirect  in- 
fluence on  our  own,  and  we  cannot  help  being  important 
factors  in  Irish  affairs.  Books  upon  the  subject  are  so 
numerous  that  some  excuse  seems  needed  for  the  publi- 
cation of  another,  but,  as  a  rule,  the  books  and  articles 
we  read  are  the  controversial  statements  of  professed 


VI  PREFACE. 

partisans,  so  that  place  may,  perhaps,  still  be  found  for 
an  uncolored  record,  however  incomplete,  of  thought  and 
conduct  in  Ireland  at  the  present  time. 

Last  summer  I  spent  rather  over  four  months  in  Ire- 
land, from  the  beginning  of  July  to  the  early  days  of 
November.  Letters  of  introduction  were,  with  the 
greatest  kindness,  furnished  me  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky  the 
Marquis  of  Sligo,  Lady  O'Hagan,  Mrs.  Penrose  Fitzger- 
ald, Sir  Louis  Mallet,  Sir  James  Caird,  and  Sir  George 
Young,  to  representative  Unionists,  and  to  represen- 
tative Nationalists  by  the  Hon.  W.  R.  Grace  of  New 
York,  John  E.  Ellis,  M.  P.,  Mrs.  Green,  A.  P.  Graves, 
and  Charles  E.  Mallet  of  London.  In  Ireland,  the 
Honorary  Secretary  of  the  Irish  National  League,  Tim- 
othy Harrington,  M.  P.,  most  courteously  gave  me  a  cir- 
cular-letter which  secured  me  the  hospitable  and  serious 
attention  of  Nationalists  from  Kerry  to  Donegal.  Every 
person  I  met  I  tried  to  draw  into  conversation  upon  the 
condition  of  the  country,  and  the  reasons  that  made 
them  desire  Home  Rule,  or  oppose  it.  Full  notes  were 
taken  of  every  conversation,  however  apparently  unim- 
portant, and,  on  reading  them  over,  I  found  that  they 
contained  records  of  talks  with  over  two  hundred  people, 
including  officials,  landlords,  land  agents,  priests,  farmers, 
professional  men,  merchants,  shopkeepers,  commercial 
travellers,  and  laborers.  Four  months  is,  perhaps,  not 
long  enough  to  find  out  much  about  a  country  so  vari- 
ously interesting  as  Ireland.  If  I  can,  however,  succeed 
in  making  the  reader  feel  as  though  he  had  seen  and 
heard  what  passed  in  my  presence  during  those  four 
months,  this  little  book  may  have  been  worth  the  reading. 
It  will,  at  least,  suggest  some  of  the  difficulties  to  be  met 
by  any  statesman  and  by  any  nation  that  proposes  finally 


PREFACE.  VI 1 

"and  at  once  to  solve  the  group  of  problems  so  long  un- 
fortunately known  as  "  the  Irish  question." 

To  the  kindness  and  interest  of  the  ladies  and  gentle- 
men I  have  mentioned  I  desire  to  acknowledge  my  in- 
debtedness for  a  most  delightful  and  instructive  summer  ; 
and  those  who  were  my  friends,  acquaintances,  and  hosts 
in  Ireland  will  well  know  that,  if  I  do  not  thank  them 
personally  in  this  place,  I  am  not  the  less  grateful  for 
their  kindness  and  hospitality.  Whatever  the  event  of 
the  future,  may  it  bring  them  nothing  but  peace  and 
happiness  ! 

GEORGE  PELLEW. 


IN  CASTLE  AND  CABIN. 


INTRODUCTION. 

THE    AGRARIAN    AGITATION    AND    THE    LAND    ACTS. 

In  the  volume  of  the  "State  Papers  "  for  1557,  there  is 
a  despatch  from  the  Lord  Deputy  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
recommending  the  appointment  for  Ireland  of  "  Commis- 
sioners to  settle  the  rent "  to  be  taken  by  landlords  from 
their  tenants,  and  also  of  a  "  Commission  to  compound 
for  arrears." '  That  the  legislation  of  the  last  few  years 
in  regard  to  the  tenure  of  land  in  Ireland  has  been  along 
the  lines  suggested  more  than  three  hundred  years  ago, 
proves  that  special  and  permanent  conditions  have  iso- 
lated the  Irish  people  from  the  general  tendency  of  civil- 
ization, a  tendency  that  has  invariably  been  from  "  status  " 
to  "  contract,"  from  perpetual  state  interference  to  the 
greatest  possible  freedom  of  individual  action. 

"  That  condition  of  society  in  which  the  land  suitable 
for  tillage  can  be  regarded  as  a  mere  commodity,  the 
subject  of  trade,  and  can  be  let  to  the  highest  bidder  in 
an  open  market,  has  never,  except  under  special  circum- 
stances, existed  in  Ireland."  ^  This  fact  is  the  reason 
for  the  existence  of  the  "Irish  Land  Question."     Under 

'  T.  M.  Healy  :   "  A  Word  for  Ireland,"  iSS6,  p.  7. 

^  "  Report  of  the  '  Bessborough  '  Commission,"  18S1,  p.  4. 


2  IN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

the  early  tribal  system  the  land  was  owned  by  the  tribe 
in  common,  with  the  exception  of  a  certain  portion  that 
was  held  by  an  elective  chief  for  the  time  being.  No 
permanent  interest  in  the  land  existed  under  this  system, 
"  tanistry,"  as  it  was  called,  and  no  people  has  ever 
become  civilized  till  it  has  been  discarded.  Such  indefi- 
niteness  of  individual  rights  was  abhorrent  to  English 
notions  of  law  and  order,  and  wherever  the  conquering 
power  of  England  extended,  the  chiefs  or  their  succes- 
sors were  held  to  be  the  owners  of  the  soil,  and  the  people 
tenants  at  will  or  from  year  to  year.  This  change,  if  it 
had  come  about  by  imperceptible  stages  and  naturally,  as 
in  England,  or  even  if  it  had  been  enforced  throughout 
the  whole  country  and  at  once,  would  have  been  acqui- 
esced in  and  would  have  made  for  civilization  ;  but  the 
conquest  of  Ireland  was  an  intermittent  and  piecemeal 
conquest,  that  for  centuries  kept  the  country  in  con- 
fusion. Within  the  "  pale  "  English  law  prevailed  ;  out- 
side, anarchy  mitigated  by  survivals  of  tribal  customs. 
Later  came  the  period  of  "  plantations."  Under  Eliza- 
beth the  vast  property  of  the  Desmonds  was  confiscated. 
In  the  times  of  the  first  Stuarts,  Ulster  was  planted.  By 
the  "Act  of  Settlement," in  1653,  Ireland  was  again  dis- 
tributed among  adventurers  and  soldiers,  and  the  natives 
were  removed  beyond  the  Shannon.  Under  William  III. 
over  a  million  acres  were  escheated,  and  "  when  he  died 
there  did  not  remain  in  the  hands  of  Catholics  one  sixth 
of  the  lands  which  their  grandfathers  held  "  after  the 
passing  of  the  Act  of  Settlement.  During  all  these  cen- 
turies it  is  clear  that  the  tenure  of  land  was  not  regu- 
lated by  contract.  When  the  original  occupiers  were 
allowed  to  remain,  they  remained  as  serfs  rather  than  as 
tenants,  and  when  they  were  replaced  by  others  the  new 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

settlers  were  selected  for  special  reasons,   military,  re- 
ligious, or  political. 

To  this  long  continuance  of  social  confusion  are  due 
the  facts  that  especially  characterize  the  "  Irish  Land 
Question  "  :  the  low  standard  of  living  among  the  peas- 
antry ;  the  absence  of  improvements  by  the  landlords  ; 
and  the  limitation  of  industry  to  agriculture.  The 
"potato," introduced  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  soon  became  the  popular  crop  of  the  country, 
for  "  it  was  easily  raised,  the  yield  was  great,  and  the 
produce  was  too  bulky  to  be  carried  away  by  plunderers," 
Improvements  by  a  landlord  are  the  result  of  agree- 
ment or  contract,  and  as  the  tenants  came  in  only  by 
custom  or  favor  they  were  naturally  neither  expected 
nor  demanded.  Moreover,  in  the  tribal  period  the  chiefs 
certainly  made  no  "  improvements,"  building  no  fences 
for  their  people,  for  the  people  were  too  little  civilized  to 
need  more  than  they  could  do  themselves  ;  and  in  the 
later  period  the  new  landlords  made  no  "  improvements," 
for  they  were  often  needy  adventurers,  and  even  a  rich 
man  would  be  beggared  by  building  houses  and  fences 
for  a  tenantry  so  numerous  and  with  such  small  holdings. 
Manufactures  were  naturally  slow  to  arise  in  such  a 
society.  Even  in  England,  manufactures  were  confined 
chiefly  to  the  northern  counties,  to  the  neighborhood 
of  the  large  coal  fields,  and  in  Ireland  coal  of  a  good 
quality  is  not  to  be  found.  Two  manufactures  only 
attained  prosperity,  those  of  linen  and  of  wool,  for  the 
climate  and  soil  of  Ulster  were  peculiarly  suited  to  the 
growth  of  flax,  and  the  wool  of  the  Irish  sheep  was 
unusually  fine  ;  but  the  woollen  industry  was  practically 
destroyed  by  Act  of  Parliament  under  the  influence  of 
the  mistaken  political  economy  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


4  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

During  the  French  and  the  Peninsular  wars  farming 
became  exceptionally  profitable,  and  under  the  protective 
tariff  the  Irish  farmers  enjoyed  almost  a  monopoly,  at 
artificial  prices,  in  supplying  English  markets.  Between 
1780  and  1846  flour  mills  sprang  up  like  magic  wherever 
there  was  water-power,  and  great  quantities  of  wheat  and 
wheaten  flour  were  exported.  In  the  south  of  Ireland 
the  grass-lands  were  broken  up  and  planted  with  this 
lucrative  crop. 

In  1795  the  franchise  was  extended  to  Catholics,  with 
freeholds  of  the  value  of  forty  shillings  a  year,  and  as  the 
restrictions  on  the  holding  of  land  by  Catholics  had  been 
before  this  time  repealed,  all  restraints  on  subdivision 
were  cast  aside,  and  an  enormous  number  of  small  hold- 
ings replaced  the  comparatively  large  farms  of  earlier 
times.  For  a  while  all  went  well.  Meadow-land,  and 
even  bog  moor,  was  found  capable  of  producing  excel- 
lent crops  of  the  best  wheat  and  the  largest  potatoes. 
"  But  how  were  these  enormous  crops  grown  ?  By 
precipitating  or  rendering  soluble  the  phosphates.  How 
was  this  done  ?  By  skimming  off  and  burning  into 
ashes  the  whole  of  the  upper  two  inches  of  the  surface 
of  the  ancient  grass  lands,  the  very  cream  and  marrow 
of  the  land,  where  for  years,  and  in  many  cases  for  centu- 
ries, lay  the  accumulated  vegetable  matter  of  the  soil."* 
Land  was  let  for  this  purpose  for  two  or  three  guineas 
per  rood  by  the  season,  and  at  a  merely  nominal  outlay 
a  crop  was  produced  that  would  realize  from  ^8  to  jQw 
per  acre. "  Mountain  bogs  were  prepared  for  potato 
planting  with  equal  simplicity  ;  the  land  was  limed, 
ploughed,  and  sown,  and  then  all  covered  with  guano 
and  clay.     The  gain  was  enormous,  and  the  harvest  left 

'  William  Pilkington  :   "  Help  for  Ireland,"  1887,  p.  4.       ^  Id. 


IN  TR  on  UC  TION.  5 

the  land,  "  which  had  hitherto  been  scarcely  worth  one 
shilling  per  acre,  in  excellent  order  for  sowing  corn 
crops  or  grass  seeds,  and  permanently  worth  at  least  ^i 
per  acre."'  The  practice  of  land  burning  extended 
over  Ireland.  "  Three  fourths  of  the  arable  land  in  the 
provinces  of  Munster,  Leinster,  and  Connaught  have 
been  treated  in  this  destructive  manner."  Life  was  easy, 
and  early  marriages  became  the  rule.  In  1847  the  popu- 
lation had  risen  to  nine  millions,  having  more  than 
doubled  in  fifty  years,  while  at  the  same  time  the  food- 
producing  power  of  the  land  had  decreased.  The 
neglect  to  use  fresh  seed  predisposed  the  potatoes  to  dis- 
ease. Partial  famines  occurred  every  few  years  during 
the  first  half  of  the  century,  and  in  1847  the  potato  crop 
was  a  total  failure.  In  1851  the  population  of  Ireland 
was  six  millions  and  a  half. 

A  condition  suitable  for  freedom  of  contract  in  respect 
to  land,  it  was  clear,  had  not  yet  been  reached  in  Ireland, 
for  the  farmers  were  ignorant  and  short-sighted,  paying 
fancy  prices,  fines,  and  bonuses  gladly  for  the  posses- 
sion of  land  as  for  a  share  in  a  lottery,  and  the  landlords 
had  complete  control  of  the  only  means  of  subsistence. 

In  1843  a  commission,  the  "  Devon  "  Commission,  was 
appointed  to  inquire  "  into  the  state  of  the  law  and 
practice  in  respect  to  the  occupation  of  land  in  Ireland," 
and  in  1845  its  report  was  presented  to  Parliament.  The 
Ulster  custom  of  "  Tenant  Right  "  was  fully  described, 
by  which  a  tenant  is  allowed  to  "  obtain  from  his  succes- 
sor a  sum  of  money,  partly  in  remuneration  of  his  ex- 
penditure and  partly  as  a  price  paid  for  the  possession 
of  land  which  the  new  tenant  would  have  no  other 
means  of  acquiring."  On  the  9th  of  June,  1845,  Lord 
'  Trench  ;   "  Realities  of  Irish  Life,"  London,  ch.  vii. 


6  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

Stanley  introduced  a  bill  "  for  the  purpose  of  providing 
compensation  to  tenants  in  Ireland,  in  certain  cases,  on 
being  dispossessed  of  their  holdings,  for  such  improve- 
ments as  they  may  have  made  during  their  tenancy," 
and  immediately  afterwards  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford 
moved  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  "  Tenant  Right  Bill,"  but 
both  were  rejected.  The  "  famine  "  was  followed  by  a 
series  of  evictions  on  an  enormous  scale,  and  in  1850 
there  was  organized  "  The  Tenant  League,"  to  establish 
the  principles  that  "  a  fair  valuation  of  rent  be  made 
between  landlord  and  tenant  in  Ireland  "  ;  that  "  the 
tenant  should  not  be  disturbed  in  his  possession  so  long 
as  he  paid  such  rent "  ;  and  that  "  the  tenant  should 
have  a  right  to  sell  his  interest,  with  all  its  incidents,  at 
the  highest  market  value."  ' 

In  1848  the  "Encumbered  Estates  Act"  was  passed 
to  facilitate  the  sale  of  estates  heavily  charged  with  in- 
debtedness on  the  petition  of  owner  or  creditor,  giving 
the  purchaser  a  simple  and  indefeasible  form  of  title. 
The  properties  of  many  old  Irish  families  were  sacrificed 
under  the  Act,  and  purchased  by  business  men,  for  the 
most  part  Irish  men,  as  an  investment,  who  for  the  first 
time  dealt  with  the  tenants  upon  principles  of  rigid  con- 
tract. "  Although  not  blind  to  the  hardships  which  often 
attend  this  greater  strictness,"  wrote  Mr.  Sullivan,  "  I 
consider  the  new  system  has  introduced  few  more  val- 
uable reforms  than  this,  which  enforces  method,  punc- 
tuality, and  precision  in  the  half-yearly  settlements 
between  landlord  and  tenant  in  Ireland."' 

In  1870  an  Act  was  passed  giving  tenants,  in  case  of 
capricious  eviction,  compensation  for  the  disturbance, 
and  on  leaving  their  holdings  voluntarily  or  upon  notice 

'A.  M.  Sullivan:  "  New  Ireland,"  ch.  xiii.  ^  Id.,  ch.  xii. 


IN  TR  OD  UC  TION.  y 

from  the  landlord,  compensation  for  improvements.  By 
the  so-called  "  Bright  clauses  "  the  creation  of  a  peasant 
proprietary  was  encouraged  by  the  loan  by  the  Board  of 
Works  of  two  thirds  of  the  purchase  money.  For  the 
next  five  or  six  years  the  price  of  cattle  was  high,  and 
the  competition  for  farms  so  great  that  rents  rose  enor- 
mously, but  were  paid  generally  without  complaint.  In 
1877  a  series  of  bad  seasons  began,  culminating  with 
a  partial  famine  in  1879.  The  farmers  were  impover- 
ished by  forced  sales  upon  a  falling  market,  and  in  the 
autumn  the  Land  League  was  formed  by  Michael  Davitt. 
The  Land  Act  had  given  the  tenants  compensation  on 
eviction,  but  what  they  wanted  was  "  fixity  of  tenure  "  at 
a  "fair  rent."  The  Land  Act  provided  for  "the  con- 
version of  occupiers  into  owners  by  the  slow  process  of 
individual  agreement  "  with  the  landlord,  but  the  occu- 
piers wanted  to  become  owners  at  once.  The  League 
then  proposed  the  compulsory  sale  to  the  tenants  of  any 
estate  upon  the  tender  of  a  sum  equal  to  twenty  years' 
purchase  of  its  "  Poor  Law  "  valuation,  and  meantime 
urged  every  member  to  take  no  farm  from  which  a  ten- 
ant had  been  evicted,  to  offer  to  pay  a  "fair  rent"  only, 
equal  to  the  "  Poor  Law "  valuation,  and  if  that  was 
refused,  to  pay  no  rent  at  all.  The  "  valuation  "  referred 
to  was  begun  in  1S58  by  Mr.  Richard  Griffith,  as  a 
basis  for  the  assessment  of  local  rates.  It  varied  greatly 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  was  considered  at 
the  time  to  be,  except  in  Ulster,  twenty-five  per  cent,  be- 
low a  fair  letting  value. 

In  1881  the  "  Bessborough  "  Commission  reported  to 
Parliament  these  important  conclusions  :  "  The  farmer 
bargains  with  his  landlord,  under  sentence  of  losing  his 
living  if  the  bargain  goes  off.  .  .  .  We  grant  that  it  would 


8  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

be  inexpedient  to  interfere  with  freedom  of  contract  be- 
tween landlord  and  tenant,  if  freedom  of  contract  really 
existed,  but  freedom  of  contract,  in  the  case  of  the  majority 
of  Irish  tenants,  large  or  small,  does  not  really  exist.* 
.  .  .  The  farmer  should  no  longer  be  liable  to  the  dis- 
placement of  his  interest  in  his  holding,  either  directly 
by  ejectment,  or  indirectly  by  the  raising  of  his  rent  at 
the  discretion  of  the  landlord.  The  landlord's  right  to 
eject  should,  we  think,  be  limited  to  certain  stated  cases, 
and  some  way  should  be  provided  for  the  determination 
of  the  fair  amount  of  rent  to  be  paid  in  cases  of  dispute.'"' 
A  Land  Act  was  at  once  passed  in  accordance  with  these 
views.  "A  great  and  noble  measure,"  said  Mr.  Sullivan, 
"  a  charter  of  freedom  for  the  long-oppressed  tenantry  of 
Ireland."  ' 

The  Act  created  a  Board  of  Land  Commissioners  with 
power  to  fix  a  fair  rent  in  the  case  of  agricultural  ten- 
ancies, with  certain  exceptions,  on  the  application  of 
either  landlord  or  tenant,  the  rent  then  to  remain  un- 
changed for  a  period  of  fifteen  years.  So  long  as  the 
tenant  paid  his  rent  and  observed  the  covenants  of  his 
lease  he  was  not  to  be  evicted,  and  he  Avas  allowed  to 
sell  his  tenant  right,  subject  to  the  option  of  the  landlord 
to  buy  it  at  a  price  to  be  decided  by  the  commissioners. 
Still  larger  advances  than  before  were  also  allowed  to 
tenants  purchasing  their  holdings.  These  provisions  in- 
volved, in  the  words  of  the  "  Bessborough  "  Commission, 
"  a  certain  loss  to  the  landlord,  namely,  that  of  his  legal 
reversion,  considered  as  a  piece  of  substantial  property. 
His  greatest  loss,  however,"  is  "  that  of  sentiment — of  the 
sentiment  of  ownership."  *     This  beneficent  measure  got 

'  Report,  p.  21.     '  Id.,  p.  19.    '  "  New  Ireland  :  A  Sequel "  ch.  iv. 
*  Report,  p.  20. 


IN  TR  OD  UC  TION.  g 

no  fair  play  from  the  Land  League.  "  Not  merely  was 
it  decried,  denounced,  and  scorned,  but  its  contents  or 
provisions  were  shamefully  misrepresented.  To  say  a 
good  word  for  it  was  rank  heresy  in  the  popular  ranks. 
To  call  it  a  mockery  and  a  fraud  was  the  orthodox  pro- 
fession of  faith."  '  Yet,  "as  a  rule,  the  reductions  given 
under  the  Act  averaged  twenty  per  cent." " 

At  Tyrone  Mr.  Parnell  announced  the  doctrine  that 
the  landlords  were  justly  entitled  only  to  .the  "prairie 
value  "  of  the  land,  its  value  as  it  was  in  an  uncultivated 
condition,  as  the  logical  deduction  from  the  "  Land  Act," 
founding  himself  on  a  declaration  by  John  Bright  that 
"if  the  land  of  Ireland  were  stripped  of  the  improve- 
ments made  upon  it  by  the  labor  of  the  occupier,  the 
face  of  the  country  would  be  as  bare  and  naked  as  an 
American  prairie." 

The  smallness  of  the  reductions  at  first  given  by  the 
Land  Commissioners  and  the  frequent  appeals  made  by 
the  landlords,  grievously  disappointed  the  hopes  of  the 
farmers.  The  creation  of  a  new  salable  interest  in  the 
"  tenant  right  "  was  soon  found  to  be  a  mixed  blessing. 
The  "  tenant  right "  was  at  once  used  as  a  convenient 
method  for  raising  money,  and  this  money  was  spent  not 
so  much  in  "  improvements  "  as  in  more  expensive  living. 
The  combination  of  "  free  sale  "  with  "  fair  rent  "  was 
found  to  be  impracticable.  The  "  land  hunger  "  was  given 
freer  play  than  ever  before,  with  the  difference  that  the 
competitive  price  for  a  farm  was  given  to  the  out-going 
tenant  instead  of  to  the  landlord,  and  the  only  persons 
benefited  were  the  tenants  in  occupation  when  the  Act 
was  passed.      Enormous  prices  were  often  paid  for  the 

'  A.  M.  Sullivan:  "New  Ireland  :  A  Sequel,"  ch.  iii.,  p.  458. 
"  T.  P.  O'Connor  :  "  The  Parnell  Movement,"  p..  135. 


lO  IN  CASTLE   AND   CABIN. 

tenant  right.  On  the  property  of  Captain  Hill  in  Done- 
gal, in  1883,  ^60  were  paid  for  the  tenant  right  of  a  farm 
rented  for  ten  shillings  a  year,  120  times  the  rent — or,  as 
the  phrase  is,  120  years'  purchase  of  the  rent.  Out  of  a 
hundred  cases  of  such  sales  that  have  been  tabulated,  in 
forty-six,  over  twenty  years'  purchase  was  paid  ;  in  thir- 
teen, over  thirty  years'  ;  in  ten,  over  forty  years'  ;  and 
in  six,  over  fifty  years'  purchase  was  paid.  In  all  cases 
where  over  twenty-five  years'  purchase  is  paid  for  the 
"  tenant  right,"  the  practical  result  is  more  than  to 
double  the  rent  of  the  new  tenant,  if  the  money  could 
have  been  invested  at  4  per  cent.  Sales  of  tenant  right 
were  accordingly  promptly  denounced  by  the  League 
as  "  land-grabbing."  Boycotting  and  outrages  prevailed 
throughout  the  country,  and  in  October  after  the  passing 
of  the  Land  Act  the  Land  League  was  suppressed,  and 
was  at  once  succeeded  by  the  "Irish  National  League." 

In  1882,  by  the  "Arrears  Act,"  any  tenant  whose 
rent  did  not  exceed  ^^30  a  year  was  allowed  to  appeal  to 
the  Land  Commissioners  for  an  extension  of  the  time 
within  which  to  pay  the  arrears,  and  in  hard  cases  the 
landlord  was  compelled  to  wipe  out  the  arrears  upon 
payment  of  one  year's  rent  by  the  tenant  and  of  another 
by  the  government. 

Since  1881  the  prices  of  agricultural  produce  have 
fallen  continuously,  with  the  exception  of  a  sudden  but 
short-lived  rise  in  cattle  in  1883,  in  consequence  of  the 
increasing  severity  of  American  competition.  The  Land 
Commissioners  gave  larger  and  larger  reductions  in  the 
rent  as  time  went  by,  but  failed  to  satisfy  the  farmers. 
"  There  was  an  average  fall  of  22.3  per  cent,  in  the 
prices  of  the  nine  chief  articles  of  produce  in  1885,  com- 
pared   with  the  prices    of  the  same  articles  in  the  six 


IN  TR  OD  UC  TION.  1 1 

years  ending  1878,  while  the  judicial  rents  fixed  up  to 
August,  1885,  are  only  19.4  percent,  lower  than  the  old 
rents."'  Leaseholders  who  were  not  entitled  to  go  into 
the  land  courts,  and  farmers  whose  rents  were  fixed  in 
the  early  days  of  the  Act,  when  prices  were  high,  were 
bitterly  discontented  when  they  noticed  the  reductions 
awarded  to  their  luckier  neighbors.  By  the  end  of 
August,  1886,  176,800  "fair  rents  "  had  been  fixed  by 
the  Land  Commissioners,  but  by  that  time  there  was 
open  rebellion  against  the  rents  fixed  prior  to  1885.  In 
October  of  1886  the  "  Plan  of  Campaign,"  so  called,  was 
formulated  by  Mr.  Dillon  at  Woodford,  on  the  property 
of  Lord  Clanricarde.  The  "  plan  "  itself  was  widely  cir- 
culated in  the  form  of  a  broadside,  and  was  briefly 
described  in  United Irelandiox  October  23d  as  follows  : 
"  The  tenantry  on  any  one  estate  were  advised  to  assemble 
under  the  presidency  either  of  the  priest  or  any  intelli- 
gent and  sturdy  member  of  their  body,  in  order  to  con- 
sult, and,  after  consulting,  decide  by  resolution  on  the 
amount  of  abatement  they  would  demand.  Every  one 
present  was  to  pledge  himself  to  abide  by  the  decision  of 
the  majority,  to  hold  no  communication  with  the  land- 
lord or  any  of  his  agents,  except  in  presence  of  the 
body  of  the  ten'antry,  and  to  accept  no  settlement  for 
himself  which  was  not  given  to  every  tenant  on  the 
estate.  Should  the  agent  decline  the  abated  rent  offered, 
it  was  to  be  deposited  with  a  managing  committee,  to  be 
placed  by  them  with  a  secretary,  trustee,  or  trustees. 
This  money  was  then  called  the  Estate  Fund,  and  was 
*  absolutely  at  the  disposal  of  the  managing  committee 
for  the  purpose  of  the  fight.'  The  employment  of  the 
>  Pierce  Mahony,  M.  P.,  and  John  J.  Clancy,  M.  P.:  "The 
Land  Crisis,"  London,   1886. 


12  IN  CASTLE    AND   CABIN. 

fund  was  to  depend  on  the  course  the  landlord  would 
pursue,  but  it  was  recommended  that  it  should  in  general 
be  devoted  to  the  support  of  the  tenants  who  were  dis- 
possessed either  by  sale  or  ejectment.  Dependence  was 
placed  on  the  National  League  to  take  care,  in  the  event 
of  loss  of  any  deposited  money  through  individual  dis- 
honesty, or  in  the  event  of  the  demands  upon  it  out- 
running the  fund,  the  grants  would  be  continued  to 
struggling  tenants  from  funds  otherwise  obtained.  There 
were  other  details  as  to  procedure  in  case  of  ejectment, 
sale,  distress,  or  bankruptcy  proceedings  of  less  interest, 
and  one  paragraph  stated  'that  no  landlord  should  get 
one  penny  rent  anywhere  on  any  part  of  his  estate, 
wherever  situated,  so  long  as  he  has  one  tenant  unjustly 
evicted.'" 

Nor  was  a  ^'  Purchase  Act,"  generally  known  as  Lord 
Ashbourne's  Act,  given  a  fair  trial,  though  it  provided 
for  the  advance  of  purchase  money  to  tenants  on  easier 
terms  than  ever  before.  Tbe  "  Plan  of  Campaign  "  was 
conducted  by  Mr.  Dillon  and  Mr.  O'Brien,  M.  P.,  on 
their  personal  responsibility,  but  the  opposition  to  "  pur- 
chase "  was  warmly  instigated  by  the  National  League. 
"The  National  League,"  said  Mx.  Dillon  to  the  Bally- 
haunis  tenantry,  ''  intended  to  lay  down  a  law,  wherever 
it  had  power,  that  no  estate  shall  be  bought  on  which  ten- 
ants have  been  evicted,  until  every  tenant  evicted  since 
1879  had  been  put  back  again  in  his  holding.  .  .  .  On 
estates  where  the  rents  were  rack-rents,  they  should  allow 
no  man  to  sell  his  interest ;  for  the  man  who  sold  his  in- 
terest on  a  rack-rented  estate,  and  allowed  a  m.an  of 
means,  a  man  of  trade,  to  come  in,  was  one  of  the  tenants' 
greatest  enemies.  The  man  of  means  would  be  the  first 
to  go  in  by  the  back  door  and  betray  his  .feUow-ten- 


IN  TROD  UCTION.  1 3 

ants  whenever  they  stood  out  for  a  reduction  in  their 
rents." ' 

The  "  Plan  of  Campaign  "  was  at  once  adopted  on  the 
properties  of  Lord  Clanricarde  in  County  Galway,  of  the 
Marquis  of  Lansdowne  at  Luggacurran,  in  County  Meath  ; 
of  Mr.  Brooke  at  Coolgreany,  in  County  Wexford  ;  of 
Colonel  O'Callaghan  at  Bodyke,  in  County  Clare  ;  of 
Mr.  Ponsonby  at  Youghal,  and  Lady  Kingston  at  Mit- 
chelstown,  in  County  Cork  ;  and  of  the  O'Grady  at  Her- 
bartstown  in  County  Limerick.  The  landlords  generally 
felt  themselves  aggrieved  by  the  compulsory  reductions 
of  their  rent,  and  held  the  more  firmly  by  the  rights  they 
thought  still  left  to  them.  An  all-round  reduction,  even 
in  the  case  of  non-judicial  rents — rents  not  fixed  by  the 
courts, — seemed  to  them  unjust,  and  often  ruinous.  The 
result  of  the  "  Plan  "  was  a  series  of  attempts  at  eviction, 
more  or  less  successful,  by  the  landlords,  and  a  cessation 
of  all  payment  of  rent  by  the  tenants  on  the  estates 
involved. 

The  "  National  League  "  itself  disclaimed  any  respon- 
sibility for  the  "  Plan,"  but  adopted  practically  the  agra- 
rian theories  of  the  "  Land  League."  The  Land  Law 
Reform  it  proposed  was  thus  stated  in  its  Constitution  : 

"  The  creation  of  an  occupying  ownership  or  Peasant 
Proprietary  by  an  amendment  of  the  Purchase  Clauses 
of  the  Land  Act  of  1881,  so  as  to  secure  the  advance  by 
the  State  of  the  whole  of  the  purchase  money,  and  the 
extension  of  the  period  of  repayment  over  sixty-three 
years. 

"  The  transfer,  by  compulsory  purchase,  to  county 
boards,  of  the  land  not  cultivated  by  the  owners,  and  not 
in  the  occupation  of  tenants,  for  re-sale  or  re-letting  to 

^  Freeman  s  Journal,  Nov    15,  1S86. 


14  IN   CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

laborers  and  small  fanners  in  plots  of  grazing  common- 
ages. 

"The  protection  from  the  imposition  of  rent  on  im- 
provements made  by  the  tenant  or  his  predecessors  in 
title,  to  be  effected  by  an  amendment  of  the  Healy  clause 
of  the  Land  Act  of  1881. 

''  The  admission  of  leaseholders  and  other  excluded 
classes  to  all  the  benefits  of  the  Land  Act.  .  .  . 

"  The  levying  of  taxes  (now  raised  off  all  farming 
lands)  upon  grass  lands,  and  the  graduation  of  such 
taxes,  so  as  to  place  the  greater  part  of  the  burden  on 
large  farms. 

"  The  breaking  of  all  covenants  compelling  tenants  not 
to  till  their  holdings." 

In  the  meantime  fresh  interest  was  added  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  *'  Land  Question  "  by  a  letter  by  Sir  James 
Caird  to  the  Times.^  "The  land  in  Ireland,"  he  said, 
"  is  held  by  two  distinct  classes  of  tenants  :  the  small 
farmers  who  pay  rent  from  ^\  to  ^2^20,  and  the  compar- 
atively large  farmers  who  pay  rent  from  ^20  upwards. 
Of  the  first  class  there  are  538,000  holdings,  averaging 
^6  each  ;  of  the  second  class,  121,000  holdings,  aver- 
aging ;^56  each.  ...  If  the  present  price  of  agricul- 
tural produce  continue,  I  should  fear  that  from  the  land 
held  by  the  large  body  of  poor  farmers  in  Ireland  any 
economical  rent  has  for  the  present  disappeared."  In 
the  autumn  Sir  James  Caird  was  appointed  a  member  of 
the  "  Cowper  "  Commission,  to  inquire  into  the  reason 
for  the  failure  of  the  Land  Acts,  and  its  report  the  fol- 
lowing year  was  immediately  followed  by  a  new  Act, 
under  which,  throughout  Ireland,  the  "judicial  rents" 
that  were  to  remain  untouched  for  fifteen  years  have  been 

'  March,  18S6. 


IN  TR  OD  UC  TION.  1 5 

reduced,  on  an  average,  fifteen  per  cent.,  and  which  ad- 
mitted leaseholders  to  have  their  leases  broken  and  their 
rents  re-settled. 

At  the  present  time  in  Ireland  the  only  tenants  still 
bound  by  their  contracts  with  their  landlords  are  tenants 
of  holdings  not  agricultural  nor  pastoral  in  character  ; 
tenants  of  demesne  land,  that  is,  land  held  by  the  owner 
in  connection  with  the  mansion  house  or  home  farm  and 
let  temporarily  ;  tenants  of  "  town  parks,"  that  is,  land 
used  in  part  for  the  accommodation  of  a  town  ;  tenants 
of  land  let  mainly  for  pasture,  of  a  valuation  of  ^50  or 
over  ;  tenants  who  hold  their  land  as  laborers  or  servants  ; 
or  who  hold  their  land  in  conacre,^  or  for  temporary  graz- 
ing, or  for  a  particular  temporary  purpose  ;  tenants  of 
cottage  allotments,  of  not  over  half  an  acre  ;  and  "  ecclesi- 
astical persons  "  occupying  glebe  lands.  Every  one  else 
may  serve  a  notice  on  his  landlord  to  have  a  fair  rent 
fixed  by  the  Land  Court,  and  in  fixing  the  rent  no  rent 
is  charged  on  improvements,  by  him  or  his  predecessors. 
"Improvements"  is  taken  to  include  tillage,  manure, 
etc.,  the  benefit  of  which  is  unexhausted,  and  any  work 
which  is  suitable  to  the  holding,  and  which  adds  to  its 
letting  value.  The  presumption  is  taken  to  be  that  the 
improvements  were  made  by  the  tenants  if  made  since 
1870,  or  within  twenty  years  before.  Finally,  in  making 
reductions,  reference  is  to  be  had  to  the  faU  in  prices 
since  the  lease  was  made  or  the  rent  fixed.* 

The  tenant  may  have  paid  nothing  to  anybody  on 
coming  into  possession  of  his  farm,  but  he  has  now,  so 
long  as  he .  pays  rent,  an  interest  almost  amounting  to  a 

'  "  A  letting  in  conacre  is  merely  the  sale  of  a  crop,  with  a  license 
to  enter  on  the  land  for  the  purpose  of  planting,  tilling,  and  takini;  it 
away."  ^  Healy  :   "The  Land  Act  of  18S7." 


1 6  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

joint-tenancy  with  the  landlord,  in  perpetuity,  which  he 
can  sell  for  all  it  will  fetch  in  open  market. 

It  is,  moreover,  to  be  remembered  that  the  rents  usual 
in  Ireland,  even  before  the  Land  Acts,  were  not,  as  a 
rule,  the  full  commercial  rents,  as  were  the  rents  demanded 
for  similar  land  in  England  and  Scotland.  Such  is  ex- 
pressly stated  in  the  Report  of  the  "  Bessborough  Com- 
mission." It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  the  prices  of 
agricultural  produce,  though  falling  steadily,  are  still 
higher  than  they  were  on  the  average  in  1858. 

If,  then,  after  having  his  rent  reduced  a  tenant  wishes 
to  buy  his  farm,  and  can  agree  with  his  landlord  as  to  the 
price,  the  government  will  advance  him  the  whole  of  the 
purchase  money,  which  he  can  repay  with  interest  at  3-^ 
per  cent.,  by  annual  instalments  of  4  per  cent,  a  year,  be- 
coming the  owner  of  the  farm  at  the  end  of  forty-nine 
years.  These  yearly  payments  will  seldom  amount  to 
more  than  three  quarters  of  the  rent  he  would  otherwise 
pay.  The  average  price  paid  in  such  cases  has  been  a 
little  over  eighteen  years'  purchase  of  the  rent,  that  is,  if 
the  rent  is  ^100  a  year,  the  price  agreed  on  would  be 
_p/^T,8oo,  4  per  cent,  on  which  with  interest  would  be  ^{^74- 
The  government,  then,  pays  the  landlord  ^1,800  and 
charges  the  tenant  ^74  a  year  for  forty-nine  years  ;  at 
the  end  of  that  time  the  tenant  owns  the  farm. 

In  addition  to  these  special  benefits,  the  condition  of 
the  tenant  has  been  considerably  improved  in  other  re- 
spects during  the  present  century.  Since  1838,  the 
tithes,  and  later  the  rent  charges  which  took  their  place, 
have  been  assessed  directly  on  the  landlord  instead  of  on 
the  tenant;  since  1870,  half  the  county  cess,  the  chief 
tax  in  the  country,  has  been  paid  by  the  landlord,  who 
also  has  to  pay  in  respect  of  holdings  of  over  £\  valua- 


INTRODUCTION.  1 7 

tion  half  the  poor  rates,  the  only  remaining  general  tax, 
and  in  respect  of  all  other  holdings,  the  whole  of  the  poor 
rates. 

The  Irish  farmer,  it  was  hoped  by  the  landlords,  would 
be  now  contented.  The  "  three  F's,"  the  nickname  ap- 
plied to  the  "  Free  Sale,  Fair  Rents,  and  Fixity  of  Ten- 
ure," that  had  been  the  limit  of  the  demands  of  the 
Tenant  Right  League,  had  now  been  granted,  the  judicial 
rents  had  been  reduced,  and  the  holders  of  leases  expir- 
ing within  ninety-nine  years  from  1881,  had  been  given 
the  privileges  allowed  tenants  from  year  to  year,  and  they 
had  been  the  chief  supporters  of  the  "  Plan  of  Campaign." 
Four  hundred  tenants  on  the  "  Kingston  estate,"  and 
five  hundred  on  the  "  Ponsonby  estate,"  went  into  the 
court,  and  the  latter  received  the  other  day  22  per  cent, 
reduction,  instead  of  the  25  per  cent,  they  demanded,  and 
their  demands  were  finally  granted  in  full  by  the  landlord. 

As  early  as  October  last  the  opinion  of  the  popular 
leaders  was  expressed  by  Mr.  O'Brien  at  Mallow,*  that 
the  "  Plan  "  had  been  a  success,  and  had  been  justified. 
"Only  140  men  were  evicted  out  of  the  30,000  tenants," 
he  declared,  *'  who,  to  my  own  knowledge,  lodged  their 
money  under  the  Plan  of  Campaign  in  Ireland.  .  .  .  But 
that  is  not  all,  because  I  can  state  to  you  from  facts  with- 
in my  own  knowledge  that,  within  the  last  ten  days,  we 
have  received  offers  upon  three  or  four  of  the  great  es- 
tates, offers  to  reinstate  one  hundred  and  fifteen  of  the 
one  hundred  and  forty  tenants,  to  reinstate  every  one  of 
them  upon  terms  that  the  tenants  would  have  jumi)ed  at 
twelve  months  ago,  but  they  are  in  no  hurry  to  jump  at 
them  now.  ,  .  .  I  find  the  universal  feeling  prevail- 
ing through  the  country  that  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  rents  is 
'  Freeman  s  Journal,  October  31,  1S87, 


I8  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

the  very  utmost  that  can  be  wrung  this  winter  out  of  the 
unfortunate  tenants  by  swords — or  by  bayonets,  for  that 
matter.  .  .  .  We  clung  to  the  new  Land  Act  as  long  as 
there  was  a  shadow  of  hope  of  adequate  redress  for  our 
poor  people  under  it.  .  .  .  They  mauled  it  and  they 
mangled  it  to  please  the  House  of  Lords,  and  now  .  .  . 
they  have  turned  it  into  a  downright  curse  and  a  down- 
right mockery  by  appointing  a  lot  of  broken-down  rack- 
renters  and  bumbailiffs  to  administer  it."  Nothing,  he 
concluded,  remained  save  to  continue  the  "  Plan."  And 
in  respect  to  the  "purchase  clauses,"  the  Act  is  also  con- 
demned. "  The  people,"  said  Mr.  Conybeare,'  M.  P.,  at 
Westport,  in  County  Mayo,  September  last,  "  the  people 
must  not  buy  the  land  ;  they  will  get  it  for  nothing  from 
an  Irish  Parliament.  The  man  who  told  them  to  give 
the  landlord  the  price  of  their  own  improvements  was 
their  enemy.  He  was  a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing."  The 
Natio7i  of  August  27th,  finally,  gives  this  positive  advice 
to  the  people  :  "  We  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring 
now  that  the  farmer  who  pays  a  rent  that  his  land  has 
not  realized  over  and  above  all  the  cost  of  production 
and  family  maintenance,  is  a  fool,  and  that  whoever 
would  assist  him  to  pay  it  is  no  friend  of  Ireland." 

This  slight  introduction  is,  perhaps,  sufficient  to  make 
intelligible  the  following  conversations,  which  do  not 
represent,  it  is  true,  the  relative  number  of  the  different 
opinions  I  heard,  but  which  do  express  with  considerable 
accuracy  the  various  arguments  and  illustrations. 
'  "  The  Western  People,"  Ballina,  October  i,  1887. 


PART  I.— IN  LEINSTER. 

A    MEETING    OF    A    CLUB    IN    DUBLIN. 

The  club  was  invited  to  meet  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  Irish  patriots.  Besides  the  guest  of  the 
evening  there  were  present  a  distinguished  professor  of 
Trinity  College,  a  well-known  political  economist,  an 
Irish  representative  of  a  large  English  woollen  firm,  an 
Englishman  intimate  with  the  leaders  of  the  Unionist 
party  in  Parliament,  several  young  members  of  the  Prot- 
estant Home  Rule  Association,  some  American  visitors, 
and  twenty  or  thirty  others.  The  subjects  of  discussion 
were  Gladstone's  Home  Rule  Bill,  and  the  settlement  of 
the  Land  Question.  The  guest  of  the  evening,  with  his 
bright  eyes  twinkling  under  a  finely  wrinkled  brow,  was 
speaking  slowly  in  a  strained  voice  as  I  entered.  The 
Irish  Parliament  should,  so  soon  as  it  was  established, 
buy  out  the  landlords  by  an  annuity  of  three  per  cent,  on 
a  sum  equal  to  twenty-one  years'  purchase  of  their 
rentals.  "  This,"  said  he,  "  would  be  only  fair,  and  it 
would  keep  with  us  a  body  of  men,  an  educated  class, 
that  the  nation  cannot  afford  to  be  without."  "  That 
would  be  well  enough,"  cried  some  one,  "if  we  could 
force  the  landlords  to  live  here."  Another  objected 
that,  in  competition  with  America,  the  country  could  not 
afford  the  extra  tax. 

"American  competition  is  exaggerated,"  suggested  the 
commercial  traveller.    "  The  American  soil  is  decreasing 


20  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

yearly  in  fertility,  while  the  Irish  land  is  perennially  fer- 
tile. The  substitution  of  a  small  charge  for  the  present 
rents  would  be  an  immediate  boon  to  the  farmer.  With 
the  sense  of  security  thrift  would  increase.  Ireland  is 
now  but  half  cultivated,  and  the  present  produce  of  al- 
most every  farmer  might  be  easily  doubled.  The  burden 
will  be  lighter  every  year,  and  in  a  generation  it  will 
cease  for  ever." 

An  American  observed  that  it  was  true  the  fertility  of 
the  Western  prairies  was  soon  exhausted.  The  farmer 
there  usually  purchased  with  borrowed  money  or  on 
mortgage,  and  so  had  often  heavy  annual  charges.  The 
cost  of  transportation  had  reached  its  lowest  point. 
Prices  had  fallen  as  low  as  they  ever  would. 

"  Do  you  call  that  just,"  cried  out  a  sharp-voiced  pro- 
fessor, "  when  prices  are  temporarily  low  to  deprive  the 
landlords  of  their  estates  at  the  depressed  value  ?  I  call 
that  robbery.  How  can  you  expect  to  raise  a  great 
nation  on  a  foundation  of  robbery  and  petty  fraud  ?" 
The  remonstrance  was  received  with  a  smile. 

The  farmers,  it  was  admitted,  would  for  some  years 
have  to  struggle  with  low  prices  ;  but  our  guest  suggest- 
ed that  such  a  great  revolution  as  was  proposed  could 
not  be  accomplished  without  sacrifice  and  privation,  and 
that  by  the  method  he  proposed  the  privation  would  be 
only  temporary. 

Some  one  argued  that  the  new  tenant  proprietors  would 
become  landlords  in  their  turn,  and  would  let  at  extor- 
tionate rents.  ''There  is  a  great  difference,"  was  the 
reply,  "between  landlords  and  landlordism.  The  evils 
of  landlordism  consist  in  the  existence  of  an  alien  and 
absentee  class  who  take  the  whole,  or  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible the  whole,  of  the  produce  of  the  soil  from  the  farm- 


IN  LEINSTER.  21 

er,  and  -whenever  the  harvest  is  below  the  average,  turn 
him  out  to  starve.  These  evils  are  due  chiefly  to  the 
accumulation  of  property  in  the  hands  of  a  few  through 
primogeniture  ;  to  the  unjust  laws  that  let  the  tenant  be 
deprived  of  the  value  of  his  improvements  ;  and  to  the 
difficulty  of  getting  new  holdings  through  the  expensive- 
ness  of  conveyancing.  Under  the  new  system  we  should 
have  native  landlords  in  sympathy  with  their  tenants  ; 
primogeniture  should  be  abolished  by  one  of  the  first  acts 
of  the  new  Parliament,  which  should  also  enforce  fixity 
of  tenure  at  a  fair  rental." 

"If  you  allowed  'free  sale,'"  exclaimed  another,  "you 
would  certainly  bring  back  landlordism." 

"  Why  so  ?  "  asked  a  professor  ;  "  in  France  land  is 
bought  and  sold  as  freely  as  any  other  commodity,  and 
yet,  though  there  are  landlords  in  France,  there  is  no 
landlordism.  Abolished  by  the  French  Revolution,  the 
popular  sentiment  and  the  testamentary  laws  have  pre- 
vented its  revival.  May  not  such  a  great  social  revolu- 
tion as  ours  have  the  same  result  ?  " 

Our  guest  summed  up  the  matter  with  a  judicial  air  : 
"  So  long  as  human  nature  remains  the  same  there  un- 
questionably will  be  landlords,  and  in  spite  of  any  laws 
that  may  be  devised,  it  will  be  possible  for  excessive  rent 
to  be  exacted  from  improvident  or  imwise  tenants  that 
will  reduce  them  to  starvation.  But  with  the  extension 
of  education  and  the  gradual  rising  of  the  standard  of 
living,  there  will  be  naturally  developed  intelligent  habits 
of  self-protection  that  will  prevent  tenants  generally 
from  making  bargains  absurdly  opposed  to  their  own 
interests." 

A  member  asked  what  was  thought  of  the  exclusion 
of  the  Irish  members  from  Westminster.     "It  is  said," 


22  IN   CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

was  the  answer,  "  that  Ireland  will  lose  her  voice  in  the 
government  of  the  colonies  ;  but  that  is  of  no  conse- 
quence, for  Parliament  does  not  now  govern  the  colonies. 
It  is  said  that  Ireland  will  be  deprived  of  all  power  in 
determining  the  imperial  policy  for  v/ar  or  peace,  but  no 
great  question  of  foreign  policy  has  yet  been  determined 
by  the  votes  of  the  Irish  members.  We  are  losing 
nothing  of  value.  On  the  contrary,  we  shall  need  all  our 
best  talent  for  the  next  few  years  in  our  Irish  Parliament, 
and  cannot  spare  a  hundred  able  and  experienced 
Irishmen  for  Westminster." 

Some  one  suggested  that  the  retention  of  the  Irish 
members  was  prompted  by  a  latent  wish  to  keep  Ireland 
within  the  taxable  area  of  the  empire.  "  If  we  are  rep- 
resented there,  they  will  tax  us  ;  if  we  are  not,  they  will 
not  dare  to." 

''  Lord  Salisbury  and  Lord  Hartington,"  said  the 
Englishman,  in  answer  to  a  question,  "  are  as  sincerely 
anxious  as  Gladstone  to  provide  a  measure  conciliatory 
to  Ireland."  "  The  difference  between  them,  "  exclaimed 
an  Irishman,  "  is  that  Gladstone  wants  a  Home-Rule 
bill  that  will  satisfy  the  Irish  members,  and  his  opponents 
want  a  bill  that  will  not  satisfy  them."  ''Chamberlain," 
said  a  professor,  "  has  had  to  surrender  his  local-board 
scheme  for  that  very  reason.  I  was  at  that  great  repre- 
sentative meeting  in  the  Rotundo  in  1879,  that  asked  for 
a  Parliament  for  local  affairs  substantially  similar  to 
Gladstone's  Parliament.  The  only  evidence  we  have  is 
that  that  is  what  the  Irish  people  want,  and  that  has  been 
accepted  by  the  whole  Parnellite  party." 

Criticism  was  made  of  the  anomaly  proposed  by  Glad- 
stone of  a  house  with  two  orders  instead  of  two  houses. 
"  Instead  of  a  system  that  has  been  tried  with  fair  sue- 


IN  LEINSTER.  23 

cess  throughout  the  world,"  said  our  guest,  *'  Gladstone 
has  substituted  one  that  no  one  has  ever  tried  anywhere." 
"  It  existed  in  Scotland,"  said  the  professor.  "  The 
most  corrupt  Parliament  that  ever  was,"  was  the  retort. 
"  Also  in  the  Irish  Disestablished  Church,"  he  continued. 
"  That  is  not  much  in  its  favor." 

The  chairman  suggested  that  the  most  important  ques- 
tion was  as  to  the  powers  of  the  Parliament,  though  that 
might  seem  a  matter  of  detail. 

*'  No  sooner  shall  we  have  a  Parliament  on  College 
Green,"  said  a  professor,  "than  there  will  arise  more  and 
more  serious  questions  between  the  two  countries  than 
ever  before.  The  Irish  Parliament  will  insist  on  exceed- 
ing its  powers,  by  laws  protecting  trade  and  Romanizing 
education,  that  will  be  vetoed  by  England.  That  will  in- 
crease national  hatred.  As  for  the  home  measures,  they 
will  be  absurd.  For  my  part,  let  an  Irish  Parliament 
rule  India,  and  discuss  the  defences  of  Afghanistan,  but 
let  them  keep  their  hands  off  my  and  my  friends'  busi- 
ness at  home.  Any  thing  but  that."  Everybody  smiled 
as  the  professor  sat  down  and  another  professor  rose. 
"You  must  remember,"  said  he,  "that  sovereignty  is 
single  and  absolute  :  you  cannot  give  it  and  retain  it ; 
you  cannot  retain  it  and  give  it.  If  Mr.  Gladstone's  bill 
amounts  to  any  thing,  it  means  that  as  to  Irish  affairs 
the  Irish  Parliament  is  to  have  the  sovereign  power,  and 
no  other  body.  Otherwise  the  bill  gives  merely  a  nomi- 
nal sovereignty  and  will  satisfy  nobody."  "Why  do  you 
wish  for  a  change  of  government  ? "  retorted  his  un- 
abashed opponent.  "  A  hundred  years  ago  unjust  and 
barbarous  laws  were  common  everywhere,  and  Ireland 
has  been  no  worse  off  than  any  other  country.  England 
has  governed  Ireland  as  well  as  she  has  governed  her- 


24  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

self."  "Your  argument,"  was  the  answer,  "  seems  to  be 
that  since  England  has  been  unable  to  govern  herself 
well,  she  should  continue  to  govern  Ireland.  The  trouble 
lies  in  this,  that  one  country  can  never  govern  another 
well."  The  hour  was  getting  late,  and  the  discussion 
became  informal  and  general  when  I  departed,  marvelling 
at  the  extraordinary  amiability  with  which  these  old 
friends  debated  so  frankly  and  clearly  questions  of  such 
exceeding  importance. 

THE    LORD    MAYOR. 

"A  good  and  useful  land  bill,"  said  the  Lord  Mayor 
of  Dublin  "  would  not  be  opposed  by  the  Nationalists 
simply  from  the  idea  that  it  would  injure  the  cause  of 
Home  Rule,  though  we  would  not  postpone  Home  Rule 
for  any  thing.  The  land  question  is  difficult  and  dan- 
gerous and  many  say  it  would  be  unfair  to  establish  an 
Irish  Parliament  until  it  is  settled.  It  is  very  fortunate, 
for  instance,  that  the  question  of  disestablishment  has 
been  disposed  of.  But  that  is  not  my  feeling.  We 
would  face  the  question  manfully  and,  I  believe,  wisely ; 
and  I  would  not  postpone  Home  Rule  for  any  thing. 

*'  What  guaranties  could  be  given  for  the  payment  of 
purchase  money  ?  A  great  cry  was  raised  against  the 
imperial  guaranty  proposed  by  Gladstone,  and  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  the  Conservatives  can  take  it  up  again. 
As  to  local  guaranties,  neither  the  grand  juries  nor  the 
unions  could  be  made  guaranteeing  bodies.  The  grand 
juries  are  a  doomed  institution  and,  instead  of  having 
their  powers  enlarged,  should  be  deprived  of  those  they 
have.  The  unions  are  absolutely  unsuited  for  such  a 
purpose.  If  the  landlords,  the  ex-officio  guardians,  vote 
on  the  question,  it  will  be  considered  unfair  ;  and  if  the 


IN  LEINSTER.  2$ 

elected  guardians  alone  vote,  no  guaranty  will  ever  be 
given.  There  is  no  institution  in  the  country  capable 
of  guaranteeing  the  purchase  money.  A  special  body 
might  be  constituted  by  the  government,  but  there  would 
be  great  difficulties  in  so  doing.  No  Castle  board  could 
give  a  guaranty  worth  any  thing  ;  and  any  board  capa- 
ble of  guaranteeing  would  have  to  have  legislative 
power,  and  power  to  impose  and  collect  taxes  and  to 
issue  debentures.  However,  one  thing  is  certain,  no 
matter  what  boards  are  chosen  or  constituted,  only  the 
land  actually  put  into  the  court  can  or  ought  to  be 
available  as  a  guaranty  for  the  payment  of  the  money 
for  the  landlord's  interest  in  that  particular  property.  A 
native  Parliament  ought  to  be  able  to  do  something  more 
than  that,  and  it  alone  could  give  a  real  guaranty. 

"With  regard  to  the  suggestion  that  demesne  lands  be 
sold :  we  are  fighting  for  a  principle  and  can  yield  in 
all  such  non-essentials.  That  is  a  theory,  and  may  be 
modified.  The  theory,  moreover,  would  mean  no  inva- 
sion of  private  rights.  The  clause  in  the  National  pro- 
gramme is  not  to  be  construed  literally.  There  will  be 
landlords  here  to  the  end  of  time.  The  old  landlord 
class  was,  however,  a  hostile  class.  The  landlords  were 
not  only  spendthrifts,  but  were,  till  lately,  debauchees. 
They  speak  now  against  lawlessness,  but  it  was  they  who 
used  to  make  the  sheriffs  swallow  their  latitats.  Nature 
herself  now  seems  to  have  come  to  our  relief,  and  put  an 
end  to  landlordism  ;  for  the  time  has  come  when  the 
land  will  no  longer  support  two  classes  of  people. 

"  An  Irish  Parliament  would  give  substantial  justice 
to  all  parties,  for  it  would  want  peace,  and  it  would  be 
the  public  interest  that  all  classes  should  be  represented 
and   reconciled.     An    extreme   party   could    not   carry 


26  IN  CASTLE  A  AW   CABIN. 

through  any  wild  project,  for  there  would  have  to  be 
there  representatives  of  the  gentry  and  the  merchants 
It  is  often  supposed  that  an  Irish  Parliament  would  con- 
sist of  the  present  Parnellite  M.  P.'s,  and  men  of  no 
property.  The  Parnellite  members  are  sent,  however,  to 
Westminster  not  to  legislate  but  to  fight.  In  our  Parlia- 
ment the  men  who  fought  and  won  the  battle  will  be 
present,  but  the  other  classes  will  be  there  too.  We  are 
a  combative  party  in  the  Imperial  Parliament,  but  in  our 
own  we  would  want  representative  men  of  a  different 
type,  men  with  practical  experience  of  trade  and  com- 
merce. We  should  have  to  get  the  element  of  stability 
there  ;  and  the  first  thing  Parnell  would  do,  if  he  had 
the  choosing  of  the  members,  would  be  to  pick  out  and 
put  in  just  such  men. 

"  Do  you  remember  how  the  legislature  was  constituted 
in  Gladstone's  bill  ?  In  one  house  there  were  to  be 
twenty-eight  Irish  peers,  and  seventy-five  members  hav- 
ing each  a  personal  qualification  of  p{^2oo  per  a?imwi, 
elected  for  a  period  of  ten  years,  and  by  electors  rated  at 
^^25  per  annum.  This  would  be  a  very  conservative 
house.  Then  in  the  other  house,  the  present  sixteen 
Unionists  from  the  north  of  Ireland  would  be  doubled  ; 
and  these,  with  the  Upper  House,  would  make,  in  joint 
debate,  nearly  one  half  of  the  whole  Irish  Parliament. 
How  is  it  possible  that  injustice  should  be  committed  by 
such  a  body  ? 

"  Now,  although  this  particular  bill  has  fallen  through, 
any  scheme  that  will  be  entertained  will  and  must  pro- 
vide for  the  inclusion  in  the  Irish  Parliament  of  a  class 
of  people  who  are  not  now  active  in  the  National  move- 
ment, even  were  the  scheme  devised  by  the  present  Irish 
members  themselves. 


IN  LEINSTER.  2/ 

"  Would  a  constitution  like  that  of  an  American  State 
be  accepted,  with  its  bill  of  rights  and  conservative 
limitations  ?  Certainly.  We  should  be  fools  not  to  ac- 
cept such  a  constitution.  Give  us  the  engine  and  you 
may  put  on  what  brakes  you  like.  The  Irish  people 
would  not  accept  a  purely  administrative  body,  but 
would  accept  any  fair  measure  of  Home  Rule." 

A    UNIONIST. 

A  gentleman  who  has  filled  many  important  public 
positions,  who  is  untiring  in  his  efforts  to  promote  every 
plan  for  the  improvement  of  education  or  the  develop- 
ment of  Irish  industries,  is  a  strong  Unionist.  Yet  a 
leading  Catholic  Nationalist  described  him  to  me  as 
being,  though  a  Protestant,  "  one  of  our  most  useful 
citizens."  The  opinions  of  such  a  man  deserve  atten- 
tion. 

"  The  poverty  of  the  Irish  farmer,"  he  said,  "  is  largely 
due  to  himself  ;  he  sleeps  all  the  winter,  without  doing  a 
stroke  of  work.  He  and  his  family  do  not  knit  socks, 
make  flannel  cloth,  or  weave  flax  as  they  used  to  ;  he 
does  n't  drain  the  fields  or  improve  the  roads.  A  Swiss 
farmer  in  his  place  would  grow  and  work  osiers,  make 
straw  hats,  or  do  wood-carving.  Suppose  a  man  with 
five  or  six  acres  gets  ^50  worth  of  produce.  He  sows 
worthless  seed,  for  the  people  eat  the  good  potatoes  and 
sow  the  bad,  instead  of  sowing  the  best.  His  method  of 
farming  is  so  wasteful  and  negligent  that  his  farm  pro- 
duces only  half  what  it  might.  Remove  the  rent  alto- 
gether, in  a  family  of  five  or  six  that  would  only  save  a 
pound  apiece.  That  would  not  help  matters.  It  is  far 
more  a  question  of  diligence  and  restraint. 

"  They  neglect  the  means  of  money-making  at  their 


28  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

hand.  Irish  butter,  for  instance,  might  always  command 
wholesale  a  price  of  a  shilling  a  pound,  instead  of  six- 
pence, the  usual  price.  The  Irish  farmer  with  few  cows 
churns  twice  a  Aveek  ;  with  many  cows,  every  day.  The 
churn  is  very  small.  The  churnings  make  successive 
layers  in  the  firkin  ;  this  is  over-salted  from  ignorance  of 
the  market,  water  is  added  to  make  weight,  and  the 
churns  are  seldom  clean.  The  result  is  that  the  butter, 
when  it  comes  to  market,  is  half  rancid  and  is  classed  as 
third-rate.  The  National  Board  of  Education  and  the 
papers  are  always  urging  the  farmers  to  change  their 
methods.  They  might  have  cooperative  butter  factories 
as  in  Belgium  and  Holland.  Some  have  been  started 
and  are  successful ;  but  usually  the  farmers  are  too 
suspicious  of  one  another  to  work  together.  Or  the  land- 
lord might  start  a  factory,  buying  the  cream  from  the 
farmers  and  selling  the  butter.  But  many  such  factories 
have  been  boycotted  by  the  League,  and  the  landlords 
won't  risk  the  necessary  capital.  With  a  better  system, 
the  farmers  of  Ireland  could  make  several  million  pounds 
a  year  extra  out  of  butter. 

"  The  case  is  the  same  with  other  industries.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Ross  said,  in  a  recent 
circular  :  *  Apart  from  the  training  necessary  to  handle  a 
boat,  there  remains  the  utter  want  of  knowledge  and 
manufacture  of  the  necessary  appliances.  Take  nets  as 
an  example.  .  .  .  There  is  not  at  present  one  machine 
for  making  nets  in  the  whole  of  Ireland,  while  in  the 
small  town  of  Peel,  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  there  are  three 
large  net  factories,  worked  by  machinery,  affording  em- 
ployment for  hundreds  of  men,  women,  and  children. 
There  is  scarcely  one,  in  over  a  hundred  miles  of  the 
adjacent  coast,  competent  to  make  a  sail  or  rope  for  one 


IN  LEINSTER.  29 

of  their  fishing  boats.  As  for  fish-curing,  one  instance 
will  suffice.  There  is  but  one  pilchard  curing  establish- 
ment in  Ireland,  and  that  is  situated  at  Baltimore.'  Some 
good  will  be  done  by  the  new  Piscatorial  School  at  Bal- 
timore. 

"  The  Nationalists  always  endeaver  to  conceal  the  fact 
that  the  motive  of  religion  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  Home- 
Rule  agitation.  The  enmity  to  the  Queen  is  largely  due 
to  the  fact  that  she  is  a  Protestant.  The  landlords  are 
Protestants,  Saxons,  and  Conservatives,  while  the  tenants 
are  Catholics,  Celts,  and  Nationalists,  so  that  party,  race, 
and  creed  all  combine  to  set  class  against  class.  In  the 
schools  the  patrons  are  either  Protestant  or  Catholic, 
and  as  a  rule  the  teachers  and  pupils  are  either  all  Prot- 
estant or  all  Catholic. 

"  However,  the  power  of  the  ecclesiastics  will  continue 
only  so  long  as  they  advance  with  the  political  sentiments 
of  the  people.  When  Home  Rule  is  granted,  the  priests 
will  all  side  with  the  Conservative  faction  of  which  Par- 
nell  will  be  the  head.  The  party  of  disorder  will  work 
heaven  and  earth  to  get  the  priests  on  their  side,  but  will 
fail,  for  a  priest  can  go  only  a  certain  length.  The 
priests  will  not  be  able  to  save  the  country,  for  they  have 
lost  enormously  with  the  people  since  they  have  shown 
that  their  morality  has  become  the  morality  of  a  politi- 
cian and  not  that  of  a  man  of  God. 

"We  should  have  nothing  to  fear  from  a  Grattan's 
Parliament,  but  every  thing  to  fear  from  a  Parliament  of 
men  chosen  from  the  riff-raff  of  the  people  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  annoying  England  in  every  way  in  their 
power.  The  M.  P.'s  are  clever,  but  so  is  every  Irishman  ; 
and  the  best  of  them  are  such  men  as  Tim  Healy,  who 
is  animated  by  a  perfectly  sincere  hatred  of  the  Saxon. 


30  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

"  What  Ireland  needs  more  than  any  thing  else  is 
more  general,  thorough,  and  technical  education.  Half 
the  misery  of  the  people  comes  from  ignorance.  At  the 
present  time  ;^8oo,ooo  is  paid  by  the  Imperial  govern- 
ment for  education  in  Ireland.  Proper  scientific  and 
artistic  instruction  would  require  ;^2oo,ooo  more  for 
elementary  education  alone.  The  revenues  of  Ireland 
were  estimated  by  Gladstone  at  four  millions  a  year. 
Could  a  Home-Rule  government  afford  to  pay  a  million 
for  education  ? 

"  The  financial  question  is  worth  considering.  The 
police  cost  a  million  pounds.  People  say  most  of  that 
would  be  saved,  as  we  shall  not  need  so  many  police. 
If,  however,  we  abolish  the  Irish  Constabulary,  we  shall 
have  to  pay  more  for  others  to  perform  the  many  and 
various  duties,  besides  the  police  duties,  of  the  Constabu- 
lary. They  are,  for  instance,  revenue  ofiicers,  prevent- 
ing fraudulent  distillation,  etc.  They  are  officers  of  the 
Registrar  General,  collecting  the  statistics  of  the  country. 
They  put  in  operation  the  regulations  under  the  Con- 
tagious Diseases  Act.  Under  fifty  or  more  other  Acts 
of  Parliament  they  are  the  acting  agents.  When,  for  in- 
stance, the  question  of  compulsory  education  was  dis- 
cussed, it  was  decided  that  such  a  measure  would  have 
to  be  carried  out  by  the  Constabulary. 

"  The  whole  of  the  civil-service  charges  of  the  country 
would  probably  come  to  at  least  another  million.  There 
are  some  four  thousand  officials  in  Dublin.  Many  new 
departments  would  be  necessary  to  take  over  business 
now  transacted  in  London,  such  as,  a  Treasury  and  an 
Audit  Department,  a  Home  Office,  a  Board  of  Trade, 
and,  pretty  certainly,  a  Portfolio  of  Agriculture  and 
Commerce.     Besides  all  these  there  would  be  the  sala- 


IN  LEINSTER.  3 1 

ries  of  the  Judiciary,  and  of  J.  P.'s,  and  other  magistrates 
who  now  act  gratuitously. 

"  What  would  be  cut  down  and  saved  in  one  way  would 
be  more  than  counterbalanced  by  additional  expenses. 

"  Home  Rule,  besides  being  dangerous,  would  be  ex- 
pensive. 

"  But  as  much  local  government  as  is  possessed  by 
Scotland  would  be  beneficial  to  Ireland.  Irish  industries 
and  trade  should  also  be  especially  encouraged  by  the 
government.  The  absence  of  wood  is  a  great  injury  to 
the  country.  There  might  then  be  a  moderate  bounty 
paid  for  every  acre  planted  with  certain  timber  on  certain 
specified  conditions  ;  for  in  planting  timber  one  can  get 
no  profit  for  the  first  thirty  years,  though  afterwards  it 
is  one  of  the  most  profitable  crops. 

*'  I  believe  in  protection  for  a  limited  time. 
"  The  official  liquidator  in  the  Court  of  Bankruptcy 
says  that  almost  universally  Irish  tradesmen  and  shop- 
keepers are  so  indebted  to  English  manufacturers  that 
they  dare  not  give  orders  to  rising  Irish  firms.  The 
account  is  always  carried  forward,  jT^Zo  or  ^'loo,  from 
year  to  year  at  about  the  same  amount,  showing  that  the 
English  manufacturers  are  interested  in  keeping  Irish 
firms  in  debt.  The  Irish  manufacturers  might  assume 
the  debts,  but  that  would  require  a  large  capital  and  a 
spirit  of  enterprise  not  often  seen  in  Ireland. 

"  The  power  to  levy  duties  was  omitted  in  Gladstone's 
bill,  in  order  to  secure  the  votes  of  the  Lancashire  towns, 
Manchester  and  Birmingham, — but  Gladstone's  bill  is 
withdrawn. 

"  Any  country  that  has  not  got  superior  facilities  for 
producing  a  sufficient  number  of  articles  cheaper  than 
any  other  country,  will  cease  to  exist  under  free  trade 


32  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

as  a  commercial  community,  because  it  can  produce 
nothing  to  exchange.  Ireland  is  in  that  position,  or 
nearly  so  ;  it  has  no  external  facilities,  it  is  badly  off 
for  minerals,  and  even  as  a  grazing  or  agricultural 
country  it  is  undersold  by  America.  There  is  only  a 
limited  amount  of  finishing  grazing  land  in  Ireland, 
chiefly  in  Meath  and  Dublin  ;  most  of  the  grass  land 
would  produce  only  inferior  cattle.  The  cultivation  of 
grain  for  export  has  almost  ceased.  Nothing  but  pro- 
tection can  save  us  from  American  grain. 

"  Manufactures  require  coal  and  iron,  and  having  to 
import  them  raises  the  cost  of  production  here.  Coal  is 
perhaps  as  cheap  here  as  it  is  in  Kent,  but  then  Kent  is 
not  a  manufacturing  county. 

"Finally,  Irish  labor  is  not  cheap  labor,  because  the 
people  drink  and  are  lazy. 

"  The  one  thing  that  might  make  up  for  these  disad- 
vantages would  be  a  superior  technical  education,  as  in 
parts  of  Switzerland,  Germany,  and  France. 

"  Five  times  more  carriage-makers,  twenty  times  more 
cabinet-makers  than  now  were  employed  here  fifty  years 
ago.  The  tanning  trade  was  once  enormous,  it  is  now 
dying  out.  Has  Ireland  derived  any  corresponding  ben- 
efit from  getting  cheaper  furniture  and  cheaper  carriages  ?  " 

"  If  you  had  had  protection,  would  you  not  have  had 
a  more  serious  famine  here  in  1879  ?  "  I  suggested. 

"  We  can  form  a  fair  idea  in  October,"  he  answered,  "  of 
the  corn  grown  that  year,  and  there  is  always  in  the  coun- 
try a  supply  of  corn  for  a  year  ahead.  We  should  have  six 
months  then  to  prepare  for  a  famine,  and  that  would  be 
time  enough.  Then,  too,  the  only  parts  of  the  country 
where  famine  threatened  in  1879  were  where  there  was 
no  corn  and  the  people  lived  on  potatoes.    As  our  indus- 


IN  LEINSTER.  33 

tries  increase  and  the  standard  of  living  rises,  the  danger 
of  famine  will  decrease." 

A    DUBLIN    BUSINESS    MAN. 

If  great  business  ability  and  unusual  shrewdness  in 
judging  human  nature  give  value  to  the  opinions  of  a 
private  citizen  on  public  matters,  these  opinions  should 
be  specially  valuable. 

"  The  whole  question  is  one  of  ^.  s.  d.,  of  the  almighty 
dollar,  and  to  call  it  a  question  of  politics  or  of  political 
economy  is  all  nonsense. 

"  I  remember  when  a  shilling,  thirteen  pence,  and  even 
fourteen  pence  was  paid  for  a  quartern  loaf  in  the  days 
before  the  corn  laws.  Then  when  the  duty  on  corn  was 
taken  off,  the  landlord  class  expected  to  be  ruined. 
There  was  less  to  be  divided  among  the  different  sharers 
in  the  produce,  so  the  landlords  lost  part  of  their 
plunder. 

"  The  farmers  afterwards  took  up  cattle,  and  for  a 
time  *  growing  meat '  seemed  to  be  an  industry  eternally 
profitable.  But  the  introduction  of  the  refrigerating 
process  in  transportation  has  completely  revolutionized 
this  business.  Prices  may  be  expected  to  fall  still  lower 
in  the  future,  for  until  now,  in  cattle  at  least,  home  stock 
has  been  superior  in  quality  to  the  imported  ;  but  of  late 
years  the  high-cost  home  breeds  have  been  exported  and 
domesticated  in  America  and  New  Zealand,  and  cattle 
are  now  being  imported  identical  with  the  best  domestic 
cattle.  Under  free  trade  there  has  been  gradually 
brought  about  an  equalization  in  prices  throughout  the 
world  for  articles  of  the  same  quality,  now  there  is  com- 
ing about  an  equalization  in  their  quality.  The  profit 
has  gone  from  the  produce  of  the  land  and  therefore 


34  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

from  the  land  itself,  and  the  question  now  is  between 
the  landlords  and  the  farmers  as  to  who  shall  be  the 
sufferers. 

"  These  two  classes,  the  landlords  and  the  farmers,  are 
fighting  for  the  control  of  the  government.  In  the  past 
the  grand  jury  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  government 
of  the  country.  The  grand  jury  is  something  of  the  nature 
of  a  shire  parliament — the  equivalent,  in  some  ways,  of 
the  town  meeting.  It  represents  the  landlord  class,  passes 
all  rates,  and  has  the  powers  generally  which  in  England 
are  divided  among  the  grand  Jury,  the  vestry,  and 
various  other  local  boards. 

"  Ireland  and  England  were  once  in  much  the  same 
condition.  England  has  fought  her  way  out  of  this 
oligarchical  system,  but  Ireland  remains  unchanged. 
Why  ?     On  account  of  her  religion. 

"  While  the  governing  classes  of  England  were  gradu- 
ally persuaded  to  yield  more  power  to  the  people,  be- 
cause they  were  of  the  same  religion  and  could  have 
confidence  in  them,  it  was  not  so  here.  Here  there 
existed  an  hereditary  warfare  between  the  classes,  on 
account  largely  of  their  being  of  different  religions  ;  one 
or  other  it  was  felt  must  be  uppermost,  and  the  one  which 
got  on  top  wished  to  keep  there.  The  bulk  of  the  land- 
lords were  Protestants,  and  always  took  on  themselves 
the  office  of  holding  the  country  for  the  British  crown. 
It  is  the  interest  of  the  landlords  to  make  themselves  the 
medium  for  advising  the  government  in  Irish  questions, 
and  they  have  done  so  with  a  view  to  their  own  profit. 
It  is  the  interest  of  the  priests  that  their  people  should 
share  in  the  government  and  should  have  sufficient 
worldly  wealth.  There  has  been  a  regular  fight  between 
the  priests  and  the  landlords. 


IN  LEINSTER.  35 

"  The  election  for  Parliament  was,  till  within  two 
years,  so  arranged  as  to  give  the  Protestant  interests  pre- 
dominance. Only  for  a  short  interval  in  O'Connell's 
time  was  there  an  Irish  party  of  any  importance  in  Par- 
liament, and  they  gained  Catholic  emancipation. 

"  Under  the  last  Reform  Bill  eighty-nine  Nationalist 
M.  P.'s  were  returned,  and  it  is  hard  to  see  how  any  com- 
promise can  be  effected  with  them  short  of  Home  Rule. 
Gladstone  has  formulated  a  possible  bill  which,  in  case 
of  his  death,  will  be  a  rallying  point. 

"  The  great  difficulty  consists  in  an  unascertainable 
factor,  the  control  the  Catholic  clergy  can  exercise  over 
a  Home-Rule  Parliament.  If  they  exert  much  influence, 
the  result  will  be  bad,  because  clerical  domination  is 
always  bad  for  a  country,  and  Catholic  clerical  domination 
worst  of  all.  The  Protestants  have  effaced  themselves, 
and  made  of  their  clergy  simply  paid  professional 
teachers,  but  this  is  not  yet  true  of  the  Catholics. 

"  The  Catholic  priests  have  followed  the  popular  move- 
ment, but  in  order  to  get  control  of  it,  though  some  are 
still  rather  conservative.  All  Archbishop  Walsh's  prede- 
cessors were  conservative  in  the  sense  of  being  opposed 
to  agitation,  but  the  bishops  now,  like  Croke  and  Duggan, 
have  taken  the  popular  side  vehemently. 

"  I  have  asked  many  Protestants  whether,  if  all  the 
Irish  were  Protestants,  they  would  object  to  Home  Rule. 
Most  of  them  would  welcome  Home  Rule  in  that  case. 
The  Protestant  Irishman  does  not  object  to  govern  him- 
self, but  he  does  object  to  being  swamped  by  a  Catholic 
majority.  That  is  the  difficulty  in  a  nutshell.  The  poor- 
est are  uneducated,  and  the  uneducated  are  Catholics. 
Gladstone  tried  to  secure  the  country  against  this  dan- 
ger by  the   provision  that  one  third  of  the  legislature 


36  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

could  hang  up  a  bill  for  three  years,  as  the  Protestants 
could  probably  return  a  minority  of  one  third. 

"  It  is  an  Irish  trait  to  try  to  get  a  thing  no  matter  who 
suffers.  Before  the  last  rising,  it  was  said  the  Fenians 
had  settled  by  lot  among  themselves  what  property  each 
should  have.  There  is  a  feeling  abroad  now  among  the 
uneducated  classes  that  a  revolution  would  be  the  occa- 
sion for  a  resharing  of  property. 

"  It  is  easy  for  Parnell  to  be  in  opposition  ;  but  when 
his  party  comes  to  govern  and  keep  order,  the  section  that 
looks  for  spoils  by  the  change  will  have  to  be  dealt  with. 
The  American  phrase  has  been  adopted  here,  *  To  the  vic- 
tors belong  the  spoils.'  There  will  have  to  be  a  readjust- 
ment of  social  order,  and  control  of  the  managing  priests 
— this  will  be  the  first  work  of  the  Home-Rule  Parliament. 

"  The  goal  the  country  has  set  its  mind  upon  is  self- 
government  and  a  legislative  Parliament.  That  would 
satisfy  them.  The  educated  Catholics  all  realize  that  to 
continue  part  of  the  British  Empire  would  be  more  to 
their  advantage  in  a  civil  sense  than  to  be  an  indepen- 
dent republic. 

"  Those  who  cry  for  the  green  flag  and  for  an  Irish 
nation  are  in  the  van.  But  you  must  have  a  van  to  any 
movement,  and  you  must  make  a  bid  in  advance  of  what 
you  expect  to  get,  in  order  to  get  any  thing.  Men  igno- 
rant of  politics  and  the  science  of  government  are 
infatuated  with  the  zeal  of  nationality,  and  seek  the  ex- 
hibition of  its  maximum  development.  These  are  the 
tail  of  the  party,  that  will  have  to  be  beaten  back  when 
civil  order  comes  to  be  established. 

"  As  to  protection  :  the  question  is  too  broad  to  dis- 
cuss, but  two  facts  often  overlooked  need  to  be  remem- 
bered. 


IN  LEINSTER.  37 

''With  Home  Rule  and  a  peasant  proprietary  for  a 
long  time  there  will  be  no  surplus  agricultural  produce 
to  export,  because  the  people  will  live  better  and  will 
not  require  to  sell  so  much  of  their  produce  to  pay  rent. 
What  is  now  a  surplus  they  will  consume  themselves. 
Take  the  rent  roll  of  the  country,  the  wealth  of  the 
people  will  in  time  be  increased  by  that  sum,  and  they 
will  be  in  a  position  to  be  large  purchasers.  The  incre- 
ment of  the  landlord  will  become  the  purchasing  power 
of  the  peasant  proprietor. 

"  Then  too  our  home  industries  depend  very  largely 
on  imported  material.  It  is  not  generally  known  but  is 
a  fact,  that  the  wool  of  the  Irish  sheep  is  too  coarse  to 
make  any  cloth  but  frieze  ;  and  it  is  an  every-day  occur- 
rence for  wool  to  be  imported  from  Australia  via  London, 
or  the  Yorkshire  district,  to  mix  with  Irish  wool  to  make 
fine  tweeds.'  The  linen  trade,  too,  could  not  exist  with- 
out free  importation  of  foreign  flax." 

A    FENIAN. 

"  I  am  not  a  Democrat,"  he  began  to  my  surprise,  "  nor 
a  believer  in  universal  suffrage.  It  has  amazed  me  that 
the  English  Conservatives  should  not  have  fought  to  the 
end  against  the  last  Reform  Bill.  There  was  no  demand 
for  it.  Nothing  has  happened  yet,  for  the  newly  enfran- 
chised millions  have  n't  learnt  their  power,  but  when 
they  do  learn  it,  there  is  no  change  that  they  may  not  make. 

"  I  can  understand  the  position  of  the  Unionists. 
What  I  blame  the  government  for  is,  not  for  coercing, 

'  "An  unmitigated  lie,"  said  a  farmer  when  I  read  him  this  sen- 
tence :  "This  thick  blue  serge  I  am  now  wearing  was  made  en- 
tirely from  the  wool  of  my  own  sheep.  And  Blarney  tweeds  are  the 
finest  in  the  world." 


38  2N  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

but  for  coercing  foolishly.  They  must  either  concede  or 
coerce.  The  English  have  not  governed  Ireland  at  all 
for  the  last  three  or  four  years.  It  is  the  National 
League  that  has  governed  Ireland.  If  England  wishes 
to  govern  Ireland  again,  it  must  then  first  destroy  the 
League.  The  new  Coercion  Act,  like  all  previous  ones, 
is  bound  to  fail.  It  does  n't  coerce  enough.  There  can 
be  no  efficient  half-way  measure.  The  only  logical  thing 
for  the  Unionists  to  do,  is  to  govern  this  country  as  a 
crown  colony  and  to  exclude  our  men  from  Parliament. 

"  I  am  not  in  sympathy  with  the  agrarian  movement. 
The  tenants'  party  is  unreasonable  and  unjust,  and  the 
landlords  are  fools.  Walsh  is  a  very  influential  man, 
and  might  have  helped  them  to  checkmate  the  other 
side,  if  they  had  accepted  his  suggestion  for  a  confer- 
ence. At  such  a  meeting  landlords  and  tenants  might 
have  got  to  appreciate  each  other's  position  in  a  way 
impossible  by  any  number  of  letters.  Even  if  no  agree- 
ment were  had,  the  conference  would  do  some  good.  If 
a  spirit  of  yielding  is  shown,  something  is  shown  that  is 
good,  and  mutual  understanding  often  leads  to  eventual 
agreement. 

"  The  land  question  is  inferior  to  the  other,  but  it  may 
save  us  trouble  if  it  is  settled  first.  The  one  important 
thing  is  separation  as  complete  as  possible,  for  perfect 
separation  is  impossible  owing  to  the  numerical  superi- 
ority of  England  and  to  our  geographical  situation.  No 
one  ever  thought  of  fighting  England  without  foreign 
aid.  In  case,  however,  of  war  between  England  and 
America  or  Russia,  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  us 
would  be  on  the  side  of  America  or  of  Russia  or  of  the 
Devil  himself  if  it  would  only  injure  or  cripple  England. 

"Home  Rule  is  what  we  want.     The  English   know 


IN  LEINSTER.  39 

nothing  about  Irish  affairs.  Even  Gladstone  does  not 
really  know  any  thing  about  Ireland.  John  Bright  is  the 
only  English  public  man  who  ever  did  know  any  thing 
about  us,  and  he  has  now  turned  against  us.  In  the 
same  way  the  English  can't  understand  the  Americans, 
nor  you  the  English,  although  you  have  the  same  cus- 
toms and  speak  the  same  language.  The  whole  trouble 
rises  from  one  country  governing  another.  That  is  op- 
posed to  all  justice  and  to  all  the  teaching  of  history. 
No  country  ever  governed  another  well.  If  Ireland  were 
a  part  of  England  as  Yorkshire  is,  would  the  Irish  people 
have  been  allowed  to  die  of  starvation  during  the  famine 
by  hundreds  of  thousands  ? 

"  Our  party  is  now  not  a  transacting  party.  Parnell  is 
the  leader  of  the  Irish  people.  All  the  various  conflict- 
ing parties  rely  on  him.  His  death  would  be  almost  as 
fatal  to  our  cause  as  the  death  of  Gladstone,  for  if  Par- 
nell died  to-morrow  the  man  would  lead  who  is  the  most 
unfit  to  do  so — Dillon.  Dillon  is  a  narrow  fanatic  and 
could  never  lead  Davitt.  In  talking  with  Parnell  the 
first  thing  I  noticed  was  that  he  was  a  first-rate  listener, 
and  the  second  thing  was  that  every  thing  he  said  led  to 
action,  to  something  to  be  done.  He  has  will,  a  fright- 
ful will.  O'Brien's  position  is  Dillon's.  They  have  the 
Plan  of  Campaign  business,  and  O'Brien's  power  is  very 
great  with  the  people  from  a  sympathetic  point  of  view, 
but  if  Parnell  put  down  his  foot  he  would  yield  at  once. 
Whether  Dillon  would  1  do  not  know.  Davitt's  follow- 
ing is  very  big  among  the  farmers,  ten  times  bigger  than 
Dillon's  or  O'Brien's.  He  is  the  only  power  in  Ireland 
independent  of  Parnell.  As  for  us,  we  are  non-trans- 
acting at  present,  but  complications  might  arise  in  which 
we  would  again  be  a  power. 


40  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  Home  Rule  is  what  we  want.  Even  after  it  is  granted, 
hatred  of  England  will  not  die  out  at  once,  but  in  the 
course  of  a  generation  it  will  cease  from  want  of  nourish- 
ment. The  Imperial  Parliament  may  give  us  a  Parlia- 
ment in  words  subject  to  itself,  but  if  the  Home-Rule 
Parliament  is  a  subject  Parliament  in  fact,  it  will  be  no 
cure  at  all  for  the  discontent  of  Ireland.  In  the  case  of 
Home  Rule  following  or  coincident  with  peasant  pro- 
prietorship, we  shall  of  course  suffer  two  great  losses. 
The  landlords  would  take  their  money  ;  they  would  also 
take  themselves,  and  that  would  be  a  very  serious  loss, 
since  they  are  the  only  cultivated  class. 

**  It  is  said  that  if  we  had  Home  Rule  we  should  per- 
secute the  Protestant  minority.  We  would  not,  and  the 
guaranties  are  :  first,  that  the  Protestants  are  a  million 
and  a  half  out  of  five  millions,  and  they  have  most  of  the 
property  and  the  best  education  ;  secondly,  that  of  the 
Catholics  many  are  only  nominally  Catholics,  they  were 
born  so,  but  have  ceased  to  feel  strong  interest  in  re- 
ligion ;  and,  thirdly,  that  there  are  many  Catholics  who, 
though  sincerely  religious,  are  more  or  less  conservative 
in  politics.  All  these  classes  would  make  together  about 
two  millions  and  a  half,  or  half  .the  Irish  people,  who 
would  be  opposed  to  any  thing  like  persecution. 

"Education,  again,  would  prevent  the  Irish  from 
blindly  following  the  priest.  The  average  Irishman  now 
only  listens  to  the  priest  on  matters  about  which  he 
does  n't  know  or  care  much.  Then,  too,  the  priests  have 
taken  part  in  this  movement  from  sympathy  with  the 
farmer  rather  than  as  priests.  Ninety-nine  out  of  a  hun- 
dred are  sons  of  tenant  farmers.  Sons  of  gentlemen,  or 
of  professional  men,  become  Jesuits  but  not  priests. 

"  Emigration  would  do  Ireland  no  good.     Home  Rule 


IN  LEINSTER.  4I 

would  greatly  check  emigration.  Emigration  means  to 
take  the  able-bodied  and  the  best  and  to  leave  in  the 
country  only  the  weakest  and  the  least  courageous. 
Emigration  should  be  encouraged  only  from  a  surplus 
population,  and  Ireland  is  at  present  only  half-culti- 
vated. 

"Under  Home  Rule  the  Irish  instead  of  being  a 
wholly  agricultural  people  might  be  induced  to  take  up 
many  domestic  manufactures.  Ireland  may  never  be- 
come a  manufacturing  country  like  England,  since  it  has 
no  coal,  but  it  might  well  become  manufacturing  to  the 
extent  that  France  is. 

"  As  for  us,  we  are  happier  now  than  we  ever  hoped 
to  be.  For  the  first  time  a  great  English  party  has  taken 
up  our  cause  and  offers  us  practically  what  we  wish.  The- 
orists must  be  sensible,  and  no  honest  man  would  for  an 
ideal  end  run  the  risk  of  a  war." 

A    CATHOLIC     PROFESSOR. 

The  Professor  is  a  foreigner  who  has  lived  in  Dublin 
for  more  than  twenty  years,  taking  no  part  in  politics, 
but  watching  with  the  keen  interest  of  a  student  of  his- 
tory and  a  teacher  of  religion  the  kaleidoscope  of  Irish 
agitation. 

"  The  secret  of  the  agrarian  distress,"  he  said,  "  is 
a  violation  of  the  principles  of  political  economy,  aris- 
ing from  the  sentimental  Celtic  attachment  to  the  soil 
which  leads  the  people  to  disregard  their  obvious  inter- 
ests. In  County  Tipperary  there  is  little  agrarian  agita- 
tion, because  the  farms  are  large  and  the  land  good. 
But  the  Irish  have  the  same  peculiar  race  sentiments 
that  still   make   Brittany   the    most   backward   part   of 


42  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

France.  The  peasants  there  will  refuse  the  most  lucra- 
tive positions  in  a  town  for  the  sake  of  keeping  before 
their  eyes  till  they  die  the  gray  stones  around  which  as 
children  they  pastured  their  sheep. 

"  If  Brittany  were  an  island  it  would  give  the  French 
government  the  same  trouble  that  Ireland  gives  to  the 
English  government.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Welsh. 
The  poorer  the  soil,  the  more  the  Celts  seem  to  be 
attached  to  it.  Their  poverty  arises  from  their  insisting 
on  living  on  farms  too  small  to  support  them  comfortably. 
This  would  not  be  cured  by  peasant  proprietorship,  nor 
even  by  the  systematic  division  of  all  the  land  in  Ireland 
among  the  farmers,  for  even  then  each  man  would  not 
have  land  enough  to  yield  him  at  the  present  rate  of 
prices  more  than  the  bare  means  of  subsistence.  A  com- 
parison with  France  is  misleading,  for  land  there  is  ex- 
ceptionally good,  and  the  people  are  the  most  industri- 
ous and  frugal  in  the  world. 

*'  The  spirit  of  nationalism  should  not  be  encouraged 
simply  because  it  is  national.  Races  are  formed  in  the 
beginning  like  species  of  animals  or  plants,  by  localiza- 
tion. For  a  long  time  in  the  course  of  civilization  it  is 
necessary  that  special  social  qualities  should  be  devel- 
oped, for  adaptation  to  the  purely  material  environment 
of  the  country  is  essential.  As  time  goes  on  the  horizon 
of  a  people  broadens.  The  influences  of  soil  and  climate 
become  relatively  less  important.  It  is  no  longer  a  ques- 
tion of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  among  a  few  tribes  in  a 
small  district,  but  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  among  the 
nations  of  the  world.  The  highest  civilization  then 
requires  the  reunion  in  one  nation  of  many  local  quali- 
ties. One  should  prune  off  from  the  trunk  of  nation- 
ality those  offshoots  that  have  ceased  to  be  productive, 


IN  LEINSTER.  43 

not  because  they  are  national,  but  because  they  disqual- 
ify for  the  battle  of  modern  life  ;  and  those  offshoots 
only  should  be  encouraged  that  are  productive,  not 
because  they  are  national,  but  because  they  qualify  for 
that  battle.  It  is  deplorable  then  that  such  things  as 
the  Celtic  language  and  the  Celtic  love  of  the  soil  should 
be  fostered,  as  is  now  done  by  so  many  able  and  honest 
priests  and  statesmen.  They  are  disqualifications  for  the 
battle  of  life.  The  glorification  of  the  Celtic  race  as  such 
is  equally  vain.  As  Sir  John  Lubbock  has  shown,  it  is 
almost  absurd  to  talk  of  a  pure  Celtic  race.  The  Eng- 
lish and  Irish  are  mixtures  in  different  proportions  of  the 
same  races.  Even  the  study  of  early  Irish  history,  largely 
legendary,  is  of  little  practical  service  to-day. 

'*  The  question  of  Home  Rule,  so  far  as  it  means  more 
than  local  self-government  applicable  to  the  whole  of 
Great  Britain,  becomes  then,  comparatively  simple.  It 
is  desired  for  the  sake  of  perpetuating  national  qualities 
simply  because  they  are  national  ;  and  for  the  purpose 
of  isolating  a  community  that  is  too  much  isolated  and 
peculiar  already.  Moreover,  what  is  to  be  done  now-a- 
days  in  the  world  cannot  best  be  done  by  a  small  nation. 
In  dealing  with  other  nations  unity  is  necessary.  In 
domestic  matters  large  means  and  an  absence  of  local 
prejudice  are  necessary  to  advance  wisely  the  civilization 
of  the  people.  Finally,  how  can  a  Home-Rule  govern- 
ment sustain  itself  with  benefit  to  Ireland  without  money 
and  without  credit  ? 

"  Of  the  social  confusion  of  the  day,  I  could  say  much. 
It  is  enough  that  I  knew  of  children  not  long  ago  dying 
in  Clonmel  of  scarlatina,  because  the  father  was  boy- 
cotted, and  the  apothecaries  did  not  dare  to  put  up  the 
doctor's  prescriptions." 


44  1^  CASTLE  AND    CABIN 

A    PESSIMISTIC    FARMER. 

"I  am  a  tenant  farmer,"  he  began,  "but  for  a  dozen 
years  I  was  manager  of  a  country  bank.  This  agricul- 
tural crisis  would  have  come  on  long  ago  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  action  of  the  banks.  I  was  dining  with  a 
landlord  in  1879,  who  was  boasting  of  how  well  his  rents 
were  paid  ;  at  that  moment  I  knew  that  my  bank  had 
advanced  money  to  practically  all  his  tenants.  At  last 
the  banks  suddenly  stopped  giving  the  farmers  credit, 
and  that  helped  to  bring  on  the  crisis. 

"  No  matter  what  reductions  the  tenants  may  get,  so 
long  as  these  bills  are  hanging  over  their  heads,  the  re- 
ductions will  do  them  no  good.  Until  the  banks  com- 
pound with  these  poor  wretches  they  will  get  no  relief. 

"  The  farmers  don't  want  peasant  proprietorship,  be- 
cause then  they  will  have  to  pay  all  the  rates  themselves — 
the  large  holders  all  the  county  cess  instead  of  half,  and 
the  small  holders  all  instead  of  none.  They  are  in  debt 
and  without  capital,  and  unless  the  government  comes  to 
their  aid  they  cannot  work  their  farms  to  advantage  even 
when  they  own  them.  It  is  true  there  is  more  money  in 
the  country  than  there  ever  was,  and  that  in  the  National 
Bank  alone  there  are  deposited  eight  million  pounds,  but 
it  is  not  in  circulation  in  Ireland. 

"  The  whole  number  of  agricultural  tenants  in  Ireland 
is  about  five  hundred  thousand  ;  of  these  one  third  have 
holdings  of  under  ^4  valuation,  and  another  third  have 
holdings  of  underlie  valuation.  It  is  preposterous  to 
make  these  men  proprietors.     They  would  starve. 

"  Gladstone's  Purchase  Bill  would  simply  have  left  the 
landlords  for  twenty-five  years  to  squabble  over  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  purchase  money  among  the  chargees  on 
the  property.     It  was  utterly  impracticable.     You  must 


IN  LEINSTER.  45 

remember  too  that  there  is  some  injustice  in  any  scheme 
of  compulsory  land  purchase.  What  do  you  say  to  the 
not  infrequent  case  where  a  man  had  land  in  his  own 
possession  ten  years  ago  and  has  since  let  it  to  tenants  ? 
"  English  rule  is  hated  in  this  country,  and  I  am  not 
surprised.  Look  at  the  Under  Secretaryship  just  vacant. 
Why  should  the  government  put  in  a  military  officer  with 
no  knowledge  of  the  country — a  man  from  India,  when 
hundreds  of  able  Irishmen  are  available,  men  like  Sir 
Thomas  Butler,  if  you  want  a  landlord  ?  Even  if  a  Land 
Purchase  Bill  is  passed,  the  agitation  for  Home  Rule  will 
still  continue." 

A    PROSPEROUS    FARMER. 

Not  far  from  Dublin  is  a  low,  one-story,  rambling, 
thatched  farm-house.  About  the  house  stretch  on  every 
side  extensive  level  fields.  Crops  that  are  the  wonder 
and  pride  of  the  whole  country-side  yearly  rejoice  the 
heart  and  overflow  the  barns  of  the  sturdy,  thrifty  farmer 
of  this  rich  alluvial  land.  He  was  standing  in  front  of 
the  creeper-grown  porch,  with  his  daughter's  St.  Bernard 
beside  him,  when  I  first  met  him — a  massive  man,  dressed 
in  thick  blue  serge  of  the  wool  of  his  own  sheep,  with  a 
magnificent  Landor-like  forehead  towering  over  a  face 
that  was  one  large  smile. 

In  the  morning  we  walked  over  the  farm.  The  large 
cattle-sheds  were  built  in  an  original  manner,  the  win- 
dows sloping  upwards  through  the  thick  walls  and  widen- 
ing towards  the  inside,  so  as  to  avoid  draughts  and  se- 
cure ventilation.  The  cows  had  their  horns  all  cut  out, 
to  keep  them  from  always  "  pucking  and  punting  "  one 
another. 

We  turned  across  the  fields.     "  Beautiful  land  is  the 


46  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

Irish  land,"  he  said.  "  On  an  average  neither  England 
nor  Scotland  can  compare  with  the  land  of  Ireland. 
Their  first-class  land  is  far  inferior  to  our  first-class  land  ; 
and  our  second-class  land  is  equal  to  their  first.  Cali- 
fornia wheats  don't  have  the  same  amount  of  gluten  as 
our  dark-colored  Irish  wheat.  We  are  not  afraid  of  any 
other  country  under  the  sun. 

"  I  never  had  finer  crops  of  wheat  or  potatoes  in  spite 
of  the  drought.     We  get  three  tons  of  straw  to  the  acre. 

"  Look  at  that  crop  of  wheat ;  "  he  cried,  "  it  is  as  thick 
as  grass  in  a  field.  The  land  is  teeming  with  it ;  it  could 
hold  no  more  of  it." 

On  his  land  he  usually  has  in  succession,  four  white 
crops,  one  green  crop  heavily  manured,  and  two  hay 
crops.  "  Off  that  field,  since  breaking  up  the  lea,  I  have 
had  one  crop  of  wheat,  which  was  too  rank  and  long  ; 
three  crops  of  oats  to  reduce  the  land,  the  first  of  which 
was  too  long,  the  second  too  light,  and  the  third  excel- 
lent ;  then  one  crop  of  potatoes  ;  one  crop  of  wheat — a 
magnificent  crop,  so  strong  and  heavy  that  it  strained  the 
self-binder;  and  the  crop  of  oats  we  are  now  looking  at." 
From  another  field  in  two  years  he  took  a  crop  of  pota- 
toes which  realized  thirty  pounds  an  acre,  one  of  cab- 
bages of  the  same  value,  and  one  of  wheat  which  brought 
in  twenty-three  pounds  an  acre.  One  twelve-acre  field 
grew  five  crops  of  grass  in  one  year.  He  raises  forty  or 
forty-five  tons  of  turnips  to  the  acre,  and  has  not  an  acre 
of  land  under  tillage  from  which  he  does  not  expect  to 
realize  twenty  pounds  over  the  cost  of  cultivation. 
Ninety  acres  he  has  let  at  different  times  for  five  pounds 
an  acre,  and  there  is  plenty  of  land  in  the  neighborhood 
for  which  four  or  five  pounds  is  paid  willingly. 

I  asked  him  what  rent  he  paid.     "  Here  's  a  piece  of 


IN  LEINSTER.  47 

one  hundred  and  eighty  acres.  In  1827  it  was  let  for 
^jTioo  a  year,  when  the  landlord  took  it  up  and  relet  all 
but  forty  acres  to  my  people  for  ^128.  The  lease  ter- 
minated last  year,  when  the  landlord  reduced  the  rent  to 
^82,  and  agreed  to  pay  half  the  cess,  thus  practically  re- 
ducing the  rent  to  ^73  or  ;^74-" 

A  farmer  so  prosperous  and  so  intelligent  might  natu- 
rally be  expected  to  have  little  cause  of  complaint  with 
the  government.  He  is,  however,  a  strong  Nationalist. 
Why,  may  be  best  explained  in  his  own  words  : 

"  We  cannot  compete  on  the  whole  with  American 
products  ;  we  must  then  be  protected  by  a  duty.  The 
agricultural  classes  cannot  be  permitted  to  die  out.  They 
recruit  all  the  other  classes.  We  were  nine  millions,  we 
are  now  five  millions,  and  have  lost  those  four  million 
laborers  and  their  products.  Every  laborer  sent  away 
takes  a  pound  a  week,  and  that  is  trained  by  America. 
The  laborer  is  also  a  consumer  of  domestic  industries, 
and,  by  his  removal,  another  pound  a  week  may  be  said 
to  be  lost  by  England  and  gained  by  America. 

**  The  protected  nation  succeeds  best.  For  this  rea- 
son the  Germans  and  not  the  English  supply  the  colonies 
with  most  of  their  imports  of  manufactures,  and  America 
supplies  England  with  more  than  two  thirds  of  the 
breadstuffs  it  consumes. 

"  Reciprocal  trade  is  the  great  thing,  prices  will  not 
rise  till  then. 

"  I  want  Home  Rule,  in  the  first  place  because  it  would 
mean  a  policy  of  protection." 

We  took  a  delightful  drive  through  the  valley,  and 
back  along  the  Wicklow  hills.  Here  and  t'.ere  the 
lofty  walls  of  some  gentleman's  demesne  cut  oi  the  view  ; 
again  we  clattered  along  the  ill-paved  streets  of  a  little 


48  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

village,  and  near  every  village  were  the  ruins  of  deserted 
mills  and  melancholy  rows  of  cottages,  with  broken 
window-panes,  of  long-forgotten  mill-hands.  "  There 
were  fourteen  or  fifteen  paper-mills  here,"  he  murmured, 
"  in  my  boyhood  ;  now  they  are  all  obliterated,  simply 
because  the  great  thinkers  of  the  world  decided  that 
there  should  be  no  tax  upon  knowledge,  and  so  news- 
papers were  sold  for  a  penny  instead  of  sixpence.  All 
this  looks  well,  but  it  does  n't  work.  .  .  .  There 
were,  even  up  to  three  years  ago,  ten  or  twelve  flour- 
mills  in  the  neighborhood  in  operation  ;  but  now  all  are 
ruined  by  American  competition." 

In  the  good  old  times  things  were  very  different,  and 
I  half  forgot  the  jolting  of  the  car,  as  he  slowly  recalled 
some  of  the  familiar  figures  of  the  past.  "  My  grand- 
father, C,  was  a  farmer  with  plenty  of  land.  He  sup- 
plemented his  farm  work  by  dealing  in  timber.  He 
would  buy  twenty  or  thirty  acres  of  oak  wood  and  strip 
the  bark,  dry  it,  and  sell  it  in  Dublin.  Of  the  timber  he 
would  select  what  was  good  enough  for  ship-building, 
and  the  debris  he  made  into  charcoal.  He  had  two 
sons  and  five  daughters.  He  and  his  two  sons  were 
weavers,  and  all  his  daughters  carders,  and  the  family 
wove  and  carded  the  wool  of  their  own  sheep  and  sold 
the  flannel  and  dressed  themselves  in  it — coats,  jackets, 
and  trousers  were  all  home-made.  They  had  plenty  of 
money  to  spare  for  every  thing.  Now  there  is  not  a 
weaver  in  Wicklow. 

"  My  great-grandfather,  K.,  was  also  a  farmer  in  Wick- 
low with  a  hundred  acres,  but  he  was  a  hatter  besides, 
and  kept  fifty  men  at  work  supplying  woollen  hat  frames 
for  the  English  army.  I  remember  him  well,  and  he  re- 
membered when  the  0"Tooles  held  Wicklow. 


IN  LEINSTER.  49 

"  Nothing  at  that  time  was  imported  but  tea  and  sugar. 
This  state  of  things  Home  Rule  would  bring  again." 

In  the  porch  of  the  farm-house  we  sat  talking  till  late. 
A  sincere  Catholic,  he  is  not  bigoted.  We  had  driven  in 
the  morning  through  a  miserable  little  village,  with  the 
ruins  of  an  old  church  and  a  bishop's  palace,  and  he  ex- 
claimed :  "  Wherever  the  church  predominates,  the  wealth 
of  the  country  ceases  to  exist."  His  opinion  about  the 
disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church  is  then,  perhaps, 
fairly  impartial.  "  I  never  knew  any  thing  more  farcical. 
After  the  disestablishment,  the  tithing  charges  were  abso- 
lutely enforced  by  the  commissioners,  while  previously 
they  had  been  discretionary  with  the  incumbents.  As 
to  the  actual  payment  of  the  tithes,  which  was  what  we 
complained  of,  they  have  not  been  abolished,  but  are 
merely  paid  to  different  persons.  The  clergy,  too,  came 
off  very  well.  A  man,  ninety  years  old,  with  a  stipend 
of  ^4,000  a  year,  receiving  twenty-two  years'  purchase 
of  the  ;^4,ooo,  and  his  successor  getting  nothing — that 
was  one  of  the  ludicrous  sights  I  saw.  I  wonder  the 
clergymen  of  England  don't  at  once  get  disestablished, 
and  put  their  money  in  their  breeches'  pockets  and  walk 
away  with  it." 

Curiously  bitter  he  was  against  the  landlords.  "  They 
are  vampires  and  parasites,  feeding  on  the  blood,  bones, 
and  sweat  of  the  people."  In  spite  of  the  vampires  he 
has  flourished,  but  the  cause  of  his  hatred  is  not  per- 
sonal. "  One  third  of  the  produce  of  the  country,"  he 
said,  "  passes  annually  into  the  hands  of  the  landlords  and 
is  spent  in  England  ;  and  if  the  land  comes  into  the  hands 
of  the  people,  it  will  be  more  than  twice  as  productive." 

"  The  subserviency  of  the  Catholics  and  the  intoler- 
ance of  the  aristocrats,  will  be  slow  to  pass  away,  but 


50  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

I  see  the  people  becoming  more  self-reliant  and  inde- 
pendent every  da)\ 

"  The  Catholics  of  Ireland  do  not  wish  to  be  separated 
from  England.  What  we  want  is  to  rid  ourselves  of  the 
monopoly  of  England,  the  centralization  of  England. 
We  want  to  keep  the  fruits  of  our  own  industry  to  bene- 
fit our  own  country,  and  not  have  them  spent  elsewhere. 
I  should  be  very  sorry,  indeed,  to  see  Ireland  separated 
from  England.     Indeed,  its  position  forbids  it. 

"  The  Parnellite  party  has  not  always  used  unobjec- 
tionable methods,  but  remember,  you  cannot  make  war 
with  rose-water.  There  are  some  extremists  ;  they  exist, 
however,  in  all  countries,  and  not  merely  in  Ireland — 
people  who  wish  to  get  up  a  scramble.  The  government 
of  the  people  by  the  people  will  exert  more  influence  than 
the  British  government  ever  can,  and  the  Irish  will  then 
become  the  most  loyal  people  in  the  empire." 

A  very  sweet  Irish  voice  interrupted  us.  "  The  Cath- 
olic Church,"  she  suggested,  "  is  the  greatest  friend  to 
England  in  this  country,  for  the  clergy  are  horribly 
afraid  of  republicanism  and  of  any  thing  unknown." 

"Yes,"  said  her  father,  "and  the  Irish  race  is  by 
nature  conservative  and  aristocratic.  Their  leaders  in 
the  past  were  all  gentlemen,  and  that  is  one  reason  for 
Parnell's  success.  They  would  never  pay  so  much  re- 
spect to  one  of  themselves.  Finally,  I  firmly  believe  that 
an  Irish  Parliament  would  insist  on  just  compensation  to 
the  landlords.  It  might  be  difficult  to  constitute  the 
proper  machinery,  but  it  would  be  done." 

TALKS   IN    WEST    MEATH. 

Of  the  smaller  towns  in  Ireland  none  has  in  the  stran- 
ger's eyes  such  an  air  of  prosperity  as  Athlone.    The  rea- 


IN  LEINSTER.  5  I 

son  is  not  far  to  seek  :  it  is  one  of  the  few  manufacturing 
towns  outside  of  Ulster.  "  Here  there  is  very  little  pov- 
erty," said  the  parish  priest,  Father  McKeogh,  "because 
there  is  a  fine  factory  here,  Gleeson  and  Smith's  Tweed 
Manufactory,  which  employs  five  or  six  hundred  hands  ; 
and  then  in  the  suburbs  the  people  make  a  fair  living  by 
selling  vegetables.  Six  or  seven  miles  off,  there  are 
grazing  farms  extending  for  miles,  and  at  present  the 
graziers  are  not  very  well  off. 

"Home  Rule,"  he  continued,  "will  benefit  Athlone, 
because  an  Irish  Parliament  will  establish  woollen  facto- 
ries with  government  money  and  thus  utilize  the  mag- 
nificent water  power  of  Shannon. 

"  I  think  if  the  land  question  were  settled.  Home 
Rule,  however,  would  become  of  less  importance,  and 
the  farmers  would  not  be  so  enthusiastic  about  it.  Home 
Rule  to-morrow,  with  the  land  question  still  unsettled, 
would  be  a  very  serious  matter.  A  fair  Land  Purchase 
Act  would  be  taken  up  by  the  farmers." 

"  Why  did  they  not  take  advantage  of  Lord  Ash- 
bourne's Act  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Many  think,"  he  replied,"  that  if  they  got  Home  Rule 
they  would  get  the  land  on  their  own  terms. 

"  The  temperance  question  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant matters  to-day.  If  we  can  make  the  people  tem- 
perate, that  will  be  so  much  money  in  their  pocket,  and 
they  will  be  the  more  fit  for  Home  Rule."  The  good 
father  then  showed  me  the  rooms  of  the  League  of  the 
Cross.  The  society  has  only  been  started  for  two  or 
three  years,  and  already  numbers  two  or  three  hundred 
members  in  Athlone  and  hundreds  more  in  Galway, 
Castlebar,  Ballinasloe,  and  other  towns  throughout  the 
country.     A  skittle  alley,  a  billiard-room,   and  a  band- 


52  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

room  belong  to  the  League,  and  the  cartoons  of  the 
Weekly  Freemaji  and  United  Ireland  that  cover  the  walls 
sufficiently  attest  the  political  preferences  of  the  young 
men  of  Athlone. 

Over  one  of  the  great  woollen-mills  I  was  shown  by  a 
partner.  Coal  from  Wales  is  used,  and  not  the  water- 
power  of  the  Shannon  that  flows  past  it.  There  are 
ninety-two  looms  and  four  hundred  workmen.  The  wool 
is  taken  just  as  it  comes  from  the  farmers,  cleaned,  dyed, 
spun  into  thread,  and  woven  into  cloth.  The  average 
output  is  eleven  thousand  yards  a  week,  at  a  cost  price 
of  a  halfpenny  a  yard. 

"  The  government,"  said  he,  "  in  the  past  let  the  exac- 
tions of  the  landlords  run  on  till  the  bulk  of  the  tenants 
were  stripped.  Farmers  of  under  a  hundred  acres  now 
I  don't  think  have  much  on  their  backs.  In  West  Meath 
they  are  fairly  prosperous,  and  in  Roscommon  ;  but  I  have 
watched  them  growing  poorer  year  by  year.  The  land- 
lords about  here  have  had  the  name  of  being  moderate, 
and  some  are  resident :  but  even  the  moderate  men  have 
not  been  fair.  The  tenants,  or  their  forefathers,  have 
reclaimed  the  land.  I  have  known  land  not  worth  a 
shilling  an  acre  reclaimed  and  drained,  the  stones  picked 
or  blasted  out,  and  the  walls,  barns,  and  outhouses  built, 
all  by  the  tenants,  and  then  their  rent  raised  from  one 
shilling  to  thirty  shillings  an  acre. 

"  The  Irish  nation  will  be  more  generous,  I  think,  to 
the  landlords  than  an  English  Parliament.  If  they  think 
the  British  taxpayers  will  pay  them  a  guaranty  in  any 
contingency,  I  fear  they  are  mistaken  ;  but  the  question 
will  probably  not  be  left  to  an  English  Parliament  to 
settle. 

"  The  first  thing  for  a  Home-Rule  Parliament  to  do 


IN  LEINSTER.  53 

Will  be  to  secure  a  better  system  of  education,  technical 
and  industrial  education.  The  tenants  have  never  learnt 
any  thing  but  agriculture  :  the  landlords,  who  were  draw- 
ing all  the  surplus  capital  from  the  country,  gave  nothing 
in  return  ;  they  should  have  taught  the  people  by  found- 
ing schools  and  starting  factories.  I  would  have  indus- 
trial schools.  England  has  not  the  same  need  of  them, 
for  every  manufactory  is  a  technical  school  in  itself. 

"  English  competition,  it  is  true,  would  destroy  any 
rising  industry  here,  unless  we  had  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities for  education.  Protection,  I  do  not  believe  in. 
It  is  preposterous  to  have  any  thing  that  would  raise  the 
price  of  food  ;  though  a  small  tax  on  flour  might  be  per- 
mitted. As  to  duties  on  manufactured  articles,  I  don't 
believe  in  that  at  all.  Without  protection,  we  here  in 
Athlone  have  the  world  at  our  command  ;  with  protec- 
tion, we  should  be  shut  up  in  Ireland. 

"  There  can  be  no  great  manufacturing  centres  here  as 
in  England,  but  in  every  village  or  town  there  is  surplus 
labor  that  can  be  got  for  very  little  and  only  needs  to  be 
utilized.  All  our  own  wool  ought  to  be  manufactured  on 
the  spot,  and  all  kinds  of  hosiery,  flannels,  and  carpets. 
It  can  be  done  perfectly  well  ;  I  am  doing  it  myself  ;  and 
if  we  could  make  as  much  more  we  could  sell  it  all.  We 
sell  as  much  out  of  Ireland  as  in  it ;  in  England,  Scot- 
land, and  America  ;  and  we  have  been  busier  than  ever 
since  the  Home-Rule  movement  began  and  the  Dublin 
Exhibition  was  held. 

"This  mill  was  started  in  1S59  by  an  Englishman  and 
an  Irishman,  who  lost  all  they  had  by  it.  The  failure 
was  due  to  the  lack  of  technically  educated  hands  ;  but 
some  few  did  get  educated  and  formed  the  nucleus  for 
another  start  which  ended  in  a  second  failure. 


54  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  I  learnt  the  business  in  a  mill  that  has  since  failed  for 
^^50,000,  and  left  a  mill  that  is  now  in  Chancery  to  come 
here  in  1870.  Both  failures  were  due  to  lack  of  educa- 
tion.    Here  after  a  hard  struggle  we  forged  ahead. 

"  There  is  enough  capital  in  Ireland  to  start  industries, 
and  nothing  is  needed  from  the  government  but  the  col- 
lection of  information  and  the  diffusion  of  technical  edu- 
cation. The  means  of  transit  also  need  improving.  Such 
matters  cannot  be  attended  to  by  an  English  Parliament 
There  is  no  use  in  tinkering  with  local  bodies.  I  am, 
therefore,  a  Home  Ruler. 

"The  Roman  Catholic  Church  would  be  a  guaranty 
against  socialism,  and  I  say  this  though  I  am  a  Presby- 
terian. The  Irish  people  are  essentially  a  most  conser- 
vative people,  and  that  is  a  fortunate  thing,  for  there  has 
been  enough  to  justify  a  revolution.  Our  market  is 
England,  and  must  always  be  on  account  of  our  want  of 
coal,  and  separation,  therefore,  would  be  ruin.  That  is 
a  false  cry." 

It  was  a  great  change  from  the  neatness  and  bustle  of 
Athlone  to  the  dirt  and  sluggishness  of  Mullingar.  Few 
people  seemed  moving  in  the  streets  except  an  occasional 
half-drunken  soldier.  At  the  hotel  a  drummer  could 
not  restrain  his  lamentations.  "  An  hotel  like  this,"  he 
shouted,  "  ought  to  be  thronged  on  Saturday  night ;  now 
we  two  are  the  only  people  in  the  place.  I  remember 
when  during  the  few  weeks  before  Christmas  there  were 
thousands  of  country  people  in  Dublin  buying,  six  hun- 
dred where  you  find  one  now.  Only  fifteen  years  ago,  I 
remember  when  the  ships  were  ranged  along  the  Liffey, 
with  their  prows  out  in  the  river  ;  now  they  lie  there 
alongside  the  shore.  Commercials  now  are  few,  and 
there  are  none  now  at  places  where  I  used  to  meet  six  or 


IN-  LEINSTER.  55 

a  dozen.  I  don't  believe  my  employers  make  any  thing 
above  my  travelling  expenses,  and  how  they  manage  to 
keep  me  going  I  don't  see. 

"  These  things  make  me  feel  the  need  of  Home  Rule. 
I  used  to  oppose  it,  but  was  converted  by  this  argument 
of  a  merchant  in  the  North  :  '  The  people  of  Ireland  are 
quite  upset  now,  and  their  trade  is  gone  in  consequence. 
There  is  no  plan  suggested  that  will  settle  them  but 
Home  Rule.  Therefore,  Home  Rule  is  absolutely 
necessary.' " 

There  was  a  shouting  outside  and  the  tramping  of 
many  men  on  the  pavement.  Hayden,  the  editor  of  the 
West  Meath  Exaniine7'^  was  being  taken  to  prison  for 
having  obstructed  the  police  at  an  eviction.  The  people 
cheered  and  dispersed  gradually  as  he  was  rapidly  driven 
away. 

"This  arrest,"  said  the  Secretary  of  the  League,  as 
he  stood  at  the  door  of  his  bakery,  "is  the  most  exciting 
thing  that  has  happened  here  for  months.  There  is  no 
political  excitement  here  nor  outrages,  and  there  have 
been  few,  if  any,  evictions  in  the  neighborhood." 

The  president  of  the  League,  Father  O'Reilley,  de- 
scribed the  county  as  entirely  a  grazing  county.  "This 
town  exists,"  he  continued,  "  solely  by  supplying  the 
graziers  and  farmers  who  come  to  the  fairs  and  markets. 

"  Here  and  there  you  find  little  strips  of  civilization  in 
this  country,  where  there  is  some  manufacturing,  but 
such  is  not  the  case  in  West  Meath.  The  trouble  is  that 
under  free  trade  manufacturers  have  been  driven  out 
by  the  English  and  Americans. 

"The  holdings  of  the  graziers  in  this  county  average 
probably  two  hundred  or  two  hundred  and  fifty  acres, 
and  those   of   the  farmers   about   thirty   acres.     These 


56  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

graziers  are  chiefly  Catholics,  but  I  don't  think  they  are 
very  earnest  in  the  cause  of  Home  Rule.  They  adopt 
that  cry  from  fear  of  offending  their  neighbors,  for  really 
we  have  as  much  objection  to  them  as  to  the  landlords. 
They  are  all  practically  land-grabbers.  Some  own  four 
or  five  hundred  acres  ;  and  many  are  sons  of  poor  farm- 
ers, who  have  gradually  bid  in  from  the  landlords  farm 
after  farm  of  their  neighbors,  and  then  have  turned  the 
whole  into  pasture  land.  I  don't  think  they  are  genuine 
Home  Rulers." 

"  Land  Purchase  here,  then,"  I  suggested,  "  would 
have  rather  special  and  undesirable  effects." 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  "but  these  matters  are  too  hard 
to  discuss.     You  should  wait  and  see  the  Bishop." 

IN    A    SMOKING-ROOM    IN    COUNTY    CARLOW. 

From  the  windows  we  looked  out  over  a  broad  vel- 
vety lawn  that  sloped  down  to  a  large  deer  park,  and  in 
the  distance  was  a  steep  mountain-side,  down  which  was 
falling  in  the  humid  air  a  column  of  smoke,  like  a  water- 
fall, from  a  peat  bog  and  plantation  lately  fired  by  an 
incendiary.  Few  men  in  Ireland  can  boast  of  a  more 
ancient,  or  more  purely  Irish  descent  than  the  owner  of 
this  vast  demesne,  which  his  ancestors  have  held  since 
prehistoric  times.  A  few  years  ago  he  was  the  idol  of 
the  people,  to  him  they  used  to  come  to  decide  their  dis- 
putes and  to  make  matches  for  their  children  ;  now  he 
is  hated  for  his  open  defiance  of  the  National  League. 
Yet  the  rents  on  the  estate  are  the  old  customary  rents  of 
the  last  century.  A  neighboring  secretary  of  the  League, 
whose  father  had  been  a  tenant  of  his  called  him  a  gen- 
erous landlord  ;  and  a  car-driver  in  Kilkenny  who  had 


IN  LEINSTER.  5/ 

been  born  on  his  property  repeated:  "A  good  landlord 
he  was  ;  I  knew  that  in  bad  years  he  often  gave  the  ten- 
ants receipts  for  their  rents  in  full."  Many  years  ago  he 
used  to  be  spoken  of  as  "the  tenants'  friend,"  and  was 
one  of  the  first  to  advocate  in  Parliament  compensation 
for  disturbance  by  the  landlord.  Why  should  such  a 
man  be  pursued  with  curses  and  hatred  by  the  whole 
Nationalist  press  ?  The  reason,  perhaps,  was  given  me 
by  the  man  most  competent  in  Ireland  to  give  a  reason, 
one  now  in  jail. 

"  In  contests  between  parties,"  he  said,  "  individuals 
must  suffer.  If  this  gentleman  were  a  good  landlord  and 
not  a  tyrannous  one  as  I  believe,  he  would  still  have  to 
lose  in  this  contest.  It  is  enough  that  he  belongs  to  a 
landlords'  association." 

"  Why  should  you  blame  the  landlords  for  doing  in 
self-defence  exactly  what  you  are  doing?"  I  enquired. 

"Well,  let  them,"  was  the  answer.  "If  they  do  there 
must  be  war  between  the  two  organizations,  and  we  '11  see 
which  will  win.  We  are  fighting  landlordism  to  the  death." 

And  yet  this  landlord  is  resident,  native,  benevolent, 
and  public-spirited.  Outside  the  demesne  gates  the 
neatest  and  most  comfortable  laborers'  cottages  line  the 
roadside.  "  But  for  the  good  lady  at  the  great  house," 
said  a  laborer's  wife  to  me,  "  I  could  not  have  got  through 
the  winter  "  ;  and  the  same  good  lady  draws  herself  the 
most  delicate  designs  for  the  lace-work  of  the  tenants' 
daughters. 

In  the  smoking-room  a  little  company  sat  talking  late 
into  the  night. 

"I  have  eight  hundred  tenants,"  our  host  was  saying. 
"  The  average  size  of  a  farm  on  my  estate  is  about  four- 
teen acres.     Many  of  the  tenants  go  away  as  laborers  in 


58  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

the  autumn,  and  some  have  plots  of  only  two  or  three 
acres. 

"  The  only  practicable  scheme  of  land-purchase  would 
be  to  give  the  landlord  an  option  to  sell  under  the  act, 
and  then,  on  his  consenting  to  sell,  to  make  purchase 
obligatory  on  the  part  of  the  tenants.  Otherwise  the 
tenants  will  hold  off  in  the  hope  of  something  better 
turning  up. 

"  How  far  such  a  scheme  would  be  taken  advantage  of 
by  the  landlords  would  depend  on  the  amount  of  the 
purchase  price.  A  fair  price  cannot  be  calculated  by 
reference  solely  to  the  rent  or  to  the  value  of  the  tenant 
right.  The  tenant  right  is  no  evidence  of  the  value  of 
the  land,  for  a  small  holding  fetches  more  in  proportion 
than  a  large  one,  because  there  are  more  who  want  it  and 
who  could  work  it.  And,  as  to  the  rent,  obviously  a 
rack-renter  ought  not  to  get  so  many  years'  purchase  of 
his  rental  as  a  generous  landlord. 

"  A  purchase  act,  however  general,  will  be,  I  fear,  of 
but  temporary  benefit,  for  the  landlords  of  fifty  years 
hence  will  differ  from  the  present  landlords  only  in  being 
of  peasant  extraction  and  of  inferior  education.  Native 
landlords,  will  not,  probably,  be  better  than  the  present 
ones  ;  for  almost  all  the  worst  cases  of  rack-renting  have 
been  on  properties  held  by  middlemen,  themselves  farm- 
ers. Immense  quantities  of  land,  too,  will  in  fifty  years 
have  passed  into  the  hands  of  money-lenders,  '  gombeen 
men.'  A  gentleman  I  knew,  fifty  years  ago  let  a  town- 
land  to  five  or  six  tenants  at  2S.  2d.  an  acre.  A  year  or 
so  ago  only  one  of  the  original  tenants  was  represented 
in  that  townland.  All  the  rest  of  the  property  was  held 
by  a  money-lender,  and  the  other  fifth  or  sixth  had  been 
divided  between  the  five  children  of  the  original  tenant. 


IN  LEINSTER.  59 

"  In  order  then  to  effect  any  good,  a  purchase  bill 
must  contain  a  clause  forfeiting  the  land  to  the  creditor, 
and  forfeiting  all  previously  paid  instalments,  in  case 
of  subletting  before  the  purchase  money  has  been  paid 
completely. 

"  Some  years  ago  a  ten^ant  of  mine,  Mrs.  C ,  sub- 
let a  plot  of  land  to  a  carpenter,  who  proceeded  to  build 
a  house  on  it.  At  once  she  took  steps  to  evict  him  and 
let  the  house  and  land  to  another.  The  carpenter  began 
to  take  up  the  flooring  and  carried  some  of  the  planks 
away,  but  was  stopped  by  the  caretaker.  The  carpenter 
assaulted  the  caretaker  and  was  arrested,  and  so  the  case 
came  to  my  notice.  That  is  the  way  the  farmers  will 
treat  one  another." 

"  The  present  movement,"  said  a  landlord  from  the 
neighborhood,  "  is  largely  a  socialistic  one  for  the  divi- 
sion of  our  property  among  the  people.  I  heard  of  evi- 
dence some  time  ago  that  some  estates  had  been  raffled 
for."  "  Yes,"  said  a  distinguished  ecclesiastic,  "  we 
knew  it  in  1867.  In  Cork  there  are  said  to  be  repre- 
sentatives of  every  property  in  the  south  of  Ireland,  who 
are  recognized  as  descendants  of  the  original  owners, 
and  are  impatiently  waiting  for  the  revolution.  I  fre- 
quently meet  the  man  who  is  to  get  my  glebe." 

"  I  know  the  name  of  the  fellow  who  is  to  get  my 
property,"  interrupted  our  host.  "  He  was  in  the  Fenian 
movement.  I  should  not  mind  so  much  if  I  knew  he 
would  keep  the  place  up." 

"During  election  time  we  can  hardly  show  our  faces," 
said  a  clergyman,  "  they  insult  us  and  the  ladies  of  the 
family  in  such  indescribably  indecent  language." 

"  The  President  of  the  League  in always  bal- 
ances up  against  my  dog-cart  in  drunken  friendliness  on 


So  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

fair  day,"  said  a  landlord,  "  yet  he  has  called  me  a  nar- 
row-minded  and   bigoted    magistrate.     'G ,'   I  said 

once,  '  why  do  you  tell  such  lies  about  me  ? '  '  Shure,' 
said  he,  *  every  thing 's  fair  in  political  times.'  '  But  you 
know  it 's  untrue.'  '  Ah,  shure  your  Honor,  they  did  n't 
believe  it,  they  knew  the  difference.'  Then  they  go  and 
elect  as  doctors  for  the  dispensaries  the  greatest  black- 
guards, who  have  n't  even  a  diploma." 

"  Look  at  the  number  of  bankrupt  Nationalist  Unions," 
cried  out  the  clergyman  ;  "they  can't  even  manage  their 
own  local  affairs." 

"  They  are  very  ignorant  and  priest-ridden,"  said  our 

host.     "  When  I  was  canvassing  for  ,  I  went  to 

the  house  of  a  farmer  to  ask  him  to  vote  for  me.  His 
wife  came  to  the  door  and  with  tears  in  her  eyes  said  : 

"  For  ,  your  Honor,  don't  ask  Ned  to  vote  for 

you.  Father says  if  he  does  my  baby  will  be  born 

with  horns  on  its  head.'  It  is  chiefly  through  the  women 
that  the  priests  work  ;  and  then  the  priests  stand  by  the 
polls  and  mark  each  man  as  he  goes  past.  Take  any 
parish,  take  this,  and  how  many  liberal-minded  Catho- 
lics would  you  find  here  ?  Not  five.  In  West  Meath  not 
fifty.  A  few  in  Dublin,  fewer  in  Cork,  and  very  few  in 
Belfast.  Be  sure  that  Home  Rule  when  it  comes  will 
mean  the  rule  of  Archbishop  Walsh." 

"During  the  Franco-Prussian  war,"  said  another, 
"  while  France  was  supposed  to  be  succeeding,  our  lives 
we  thought  not  worth  a  moment's  purchase  :  but  Sedan 
settled  the  Irish  question  for  many  years.  Home  Rule 
meant  civil  war.  Only  the  soldiers  keep  Belfast  down. 
The  Scotch  would  pour  into  the  north  and  the  Irish- 
Americans  into  the  south."  "  It  would  be  a  case  of 
the   Kilkenny  cats,"   said   the  landlord;    "before   two 


IN  LEINSTER.  6 1 

years  were  over  there  would  not  be  a  tail  left  in  Ireland. 
England  would  have  to  come  in,  and  whichever  side 
England  took  would  win.  Why  begin  the  fray  ?  The 
London  Companies  are  already  leaving  the  north  of 
Ireland,  depriving  the  people  of  vast  sums  they  spent  in 
charities.     I  greatly  fear  the  exodus  has  begun." 

A  COUNTY  CARLOW  LANDLORD. 

From  the  hospitable  house  where  we  happened  to  be 
staying  I  made  many  little  trips  in  County  Carlow  with  a 
descendant  of  one  of  those  ancient  Norman  families  that 
were  said  three  centuries  ago  to  have  become  more  Irish 
than  the  Irish.  He  is  seldom  out  of  Ireland,  for  his  du- 
ties on  agricultural  societies,  local  boards,  the  union, 
grand  jury,  and  the  bench  are  enough  with  his  home 
farm  to  keep  him  busy  from  January  to  December.  His 
popularity  with  all  the  people  was  delightful  to  see. 
"  Good  luck  to  your  Honor  !  "  "  Fine  day,  your  Honor  !  " 
the  farmers  shouted  as  they  jolted  past  us,  and  for  every 
one  he  had  a  kind  word  and  a  good-natured  joke. 

"  I  own  six  thousand  acres,"  he  said,  "  and  have  had 
no  evictions  for  six  years,  except  in  the  case  of  a  man 
who  settled,  and  I  allowed  him  to  sell  out,  which  he  did 
for  ^i8o. 

"  It  cost  me  jQ^ijS^o  some  time  ago  to  take  up  a  farm 
of  192  Irish  acres,  and  four  years  ago  I  paid  ^1,050 
to  take  up  a  farm  of  a  hundred  acres  all  in  grass. 

"  There's  H.,  a  schoolmaster,  his  rent  is  ^11  loi-.  for 
II  acres.  His  brother  had  the  farm,  but  died  in  debt. 
I  took  it  up  and  was  going  to  sell  it  to  a  neighbor.  H. 
wrote  to  ask  me  to  take  him  on  and  I  did  so.  He  pro- 
ceeded to  build  an  expensive  house  on  it,  far  too  good, 
and  now   he  owes   me   ;,{^23    rent.     The    other  day   he 


62  IN   CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

served  me  with  a  notice  to  go  into  court  and  have  the 
rent  fixed.  Now  that  rent  has  not  been  raised  since 
1820,  and  no  one  knows  for  how  long  before. 

"  I  went  over  my  rent  roll  a  short  time  ago.  I  had 
complete  rent  rolls  of  1841  and  1881,  and  I  found  the 
rental  had  increased  only  seven  and  a  half  per  cent,  since 
1841. 

"  The  tenants'  improvements  are  much  talked  about. 
It  is  usual  here  for  the  tenants  to  make  improvements 
that  in  England  are  made  by  the  landlord,  but  there  is 
no  injustice  in  this,  for  rents  in  Ireland  are  much  lower 
than  they  are  in  England.  Virtually  we  pay  for  the  im- 
provements through  asking  less  than  the  commercial  rent 
of  the  land. 

"  As  a  rule,  when  a  tenant  builds  a  house,  he  draws 
the  slates  and  does  the  labor,  and  we  pay  for  the  timber 
and  the  slates.  Bills  for  timber  and  slates  are  taken  by 
many  of  us  as  cash. 

"All  rent  is  now  called  rack-rent.  Between  1850  and 
1857,  under  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act,  many  specula- 
tors bought  Irish  land,  with  the  intention  of  selling 
again.  Adair,  of  Glenveigh,  was  one  of  that  class  ;  he 
began  with  only  ;^2,ooo,  and  went  on  buying  land,  raising 
the  rents,  and  selling  again  at  an  enormous  advance. 
But  land  owned  by  old  families  is  invariably  let  at  a  rate 
much  less  than  the  market  price.  It  is  the  jobbers  who 
have  rack-rented.  I  have  never  let  at  the  highest  market 
price." 

Soon  we  came  to  the  farm,  chiefly  pasture,  with  a  low, 
neat  house  not  far  from  the  road.  "  This,  a  hundred 
and  one  acres,  the  rent  of  which  was  ^178,  and  the 
valuation  ;^i27,  I  took  up  in  1883  from  a  tenant  for 
^1,050.     It   came    down    to    me   from   father  and   son 


IN  LEINSTER.  63 

through  ten  generations.  I  then  borrowed  money  from 
the  Board  of  Works  and  rebuilt  the  house  on  the  old 
foundations.  The  farm  was  very  much  run  down  when 
I  took  it,  so  I  spent  ;z^3oo  in  draining  it,  and  have  spent 
more  than  I  have  made  so  far.  In  October  last  I  bought 
fifty  yearling  bullocks  for  ^^286.  They  have  had  nothing 
but  hay  and  grass,  and  I  expect  to  sell  them  in  October 
for;^5oo  or  ^550.  The  only  farm  hands  I  keep  are  a 
steward  and  a  herd,  each  of  whom  gets  lo^'.  a  week,  grass 
for  a  cow  and  donkey,  and  three  roods.  I  sold  some 
fifteen  months'  colts  the  other  day  for  ;z^37  loi-.  Meadow- 
ing  hay  I  sell  for  from  50^'.  to  70^-.  an  acre.  Altogether,  I 
have  three  hundred  Irish  acres  of  grass  and  tillage,  and 
four  hundred  of  wood  and  waste,  and  I  make  from  it  a 
little  more  than  I  should  if  I  let  it. 

"  Not  half  of  my  rents  are  falling  in.  The  May  and 
June  rents,  which  I  have  usually  had  paid  by  this  time, 
have  n't  been  paid. 

"  We  retrench  as  much  as  we  can.  I  have  had  to  dis- 
charge a  carpenter  and  a  mason  I  had  in  constant  em- 
ployment for  twenty-five  years,  as  well  as  two  hands  in 
the  garden  and  four  on  the  farm.  There  are  many  like 
myself,  who  have  n't  a  common  copper  except  what  comes 
from  the  land,  and  we  never  know  whether  we  shall  have 
any  thing  in  a  year's  time.  Why  should  we  be  put  in 
this  pinch  simply  because  of  an  exigency  of  the  govern- 
ment ? 

"  Free  sale,  of  course,  operates  as  a  second  rent  on  the 
purchasing  tenant,  but  the  tenants  don't  think  of  it  as 
such,  because  they  never  look  on  money  as  a  fund  ; 
they  never  think  of  investing  money  for  the  sake  of 
interest.  The  League  soon  saw  that  the  tenants  selling 
and  getting  high  prices  for  their  tenant  right  prevented 


64  IJ^  CASTLE  AND   CABIN: 

the  courts  from  reducing  the  rents,  so  they  denounced 
sale  as  land-grabbing.  It  is  their  interest  to  keep  a 
broken  man  in  possession  of  a  farm,  in  order  to  depre- 
ciate its  value.  I  know  lots  of  men  who  are  in  difficulty, 
who  would  gladly  sell  and  invest  their  money  in  a  smaller 
farm,  much  to  the  benefit  of  everybody,  but  they  are  not 
allowed  to. 

"  The  land  question  is  taken  up  by  the  priests  and  Par- 
nellites  for  different  purposes,  and  by  both  as  a  means  to 
an  end  :  by  the  former,  in  order  to  expropriate  the 
minority  who  now  own  the  land,  who  are  Protestants  ; 
and  by  the  latter,  in  order  to  secure  a  Home-Rule  Parlia- 
ment. The  young  and  more  rabid  priests  are  leading 
the  movement,  and  the  older  and  better  educated  are 
following,  so  as  to  keep  on  the  crest  of  the  wave. 

"  In  a  system  of  land  purchase,  county  guaranties  will 
only  be  good  if  the  country  continues  under  the  im- 
perial government." 

"  Who  will  leave  the  country  if  a  peasant  proprietary 
is  established  ?"  I  asked. 

"  I  and  many  others  like  me,"  he  said,  "  would  not 
go  away,  and  many  would  go  with  regret  only  because 
they  could  not  afford  to  keep  their  places.  The  smaller 
proprietors  would  be  unable  to  remain.  There  are  an 
enormous  number  of  small  landlords  who  purchased 
Irish  land  as  a  good  investment,  and  a  great  many  of 
them  will  have  to  go,  since  they  have  often  retained  no 
land  at  all  in  their  own  hands,  except  one  house  each 
and  a  garden  plot.  The  large  landlords  have  great  de- 
mesnes which  they  can  cultivate,  and  their  grand  houses 
and  demesnes  they  would  be  loath  to  leave  and  unable  to 
abandon,  for  they  certainly  could  not  sell  them.  Those 
who  have  no  residence  here  do  not  live  here  now,  and 


IN  LEINSTER.  65 

as  to  them  there  will  be  no  change.  Those  who  have 
residences  here  now  and  live  in  them  will  remain  if  they 
possibly  can." 

"  Even  peasant  proprietorship  will  not  cure  all  agra- 
rian distress.  The  careful  man  will  purchase  from  the 
improvident,  and  the  government  can  never  keep  a  sharp 
enough  look-out  on  the  individual  farmer  to  prevent  him 
from  subletting. 

*'  The  people  also  are  extremely  illogical.  This  sum- 
mer on  the  Board  of  Guardians  every  one  wanted  to 
keep  the  rates  down,  as  it  was  going  to  be  a  very  hard 
year.  I  warned  them  that  in  a  hard  year  more  paupers 
would  come  upon  the  Union  than  in  a  good  year,  and 
that  that  contingency  must  be  provided  for.  Now,  out- 
door relief  has  increased  enormously,  and  the  Union  is  in 
debt  over  ;^2oo. 

"  If  we  are  to  have  Home  Rule,  it  will  not  do  to  trust 
the  present  electorate,  but  one  must  provide  for  the 
presence  of  representatives  of  capital  and  commerce,  of 
the  legal  and  medical  professions,  on  important  boards 
and  committees.  The  merchants  of  Dublin  could  be 
trusted,  but  they  are  so  few  in  proportion  as  to  be  prac- 
tically disfranchised. 

"  I  would  n't  trust  the  people  with  the  administration 
of  the  criminal  law,  for  at  present  they  are  too  demoral- 
ized to  have  regard  for  law,  and  if  they  could,  would 
remove  a  judge  who  did  not  decide  according  to  their 
notions. 

**  I  would  n't  trust  them  with  what  might  be  called  the 
incidence  of  taxation,  but  only  with  its  collection  ;  for 
if  they  could,  they  would  throw  the  burden  on  unpopular 
persons  and  classes. 

"  The  people,  I  think,  are  not  at  heart  disloyal  when 


^  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

they  are  let  alone.  The  O'Connell  movement  was  aided 
by  the  desire  for  Catholic  emancipation,  which  no  one 
with  a  sense  of  justice  could  oppose  ;  and  the  National- 
ist movement  is  aided  by  the  agrarian  agitation, 

'*  The  leaders  of  the  agitation,  however,  go  to  danger- 
ous lengths.  This  is  from  a  letter  written  to  me  by  a 
tanner,  a  prominent  leaguer  :  '  We  like  our  nobility  and 
gentry  when  they  promote  employment  and  add  to  the 
general  prosperity  of  the  country,  and  we  desire  to  have 
them  always  living  in  our  midst,  feeling  themselves — as 
they  are — quite  as  secure  as  if  they  were  surrounded  by 
all  the  armed  forces  of  the  British  dominions  ;  taking 
their  proper  places,  not  at  the  tail  of  an  English  oligarchy, 
but  at  the  head  of  the  Irish  people  ;  the  nobility  of  an 
Irish  self-sustaining,  independent  nation,  and  bound  to 
England  only  by  the  golden  link  of  the  crown  and  by 
ties  of  affection  and  affinity.'  Home  Rule  is  opposed  by 
most  on  religious  grounds.  My  gardener  and  steward  are 
Protestants,  and  they  are  more  afraid  of  Catholic  ascend- 
ancy than  I  am  ;  they  think  their  lives  would  not  be 
safe. 

"You  ask  me  what  changes  in  the  laws  are  most 
needed.  I  am  in  favor  of  a  duty  on  flour,  dead  meat, 
and  manufactured  articles.  Law  costs  in  the  Land 
Courts  should  be  reduced.  They  are  absurdly  high.  On 
January  9,  1882,  there  were  nineteen  cases  on  trial  before 
the  subcommissioners  at  Mayo  ;  six  cases  were  dismissed. 
Of  the  remaining  thirteen,  the  original  rent  was  £,\o'] 
i8j.,  the  reduction  ^40  xds.  6d.  The  total  of  the  solici- 
tors' charges  was  ^32  10s.  :  and  of  the  fees  to  counsel, 

"The  poor-rate  is  assessed  unfairly.  It  has  always 
been  assessed  on  land  only,  but  why  should  it  not  be 


IN  LEINSTER.  6/ 

assessed  on  income  ?  A  farmer  living  in  a  house  worth 
;!^3o,  and  making  ^loo  a  year,  ought  not  to  pay,  as  he 
does,  the  same  poor-rate  as  a  trader  living  in  a  similar 
house,  and  making  ^i,ooo  a  year." 

A    MILLER. 

Throughout  Ireland  one  sees  by  every  river-side  de- 
serted, ruined  mills  ;  but  in  County  Carlow  some  giant 
water-wheels  are  turning  still.  In  one  of  the  largest 
of  these  mills  the  machinery  is  elaborate  and  of  the 
newest  designs,  chiefly  of  American  invention  and  manu- 
facture. The  wheat  used  is  American  and  Black  Sea, 
only  ten  per  cent,  being  Irish.  The  output  is  a  thousand 
sacks  a  week,  and  is  all  sold  within  a  radius  of  fifty 
miles  ;  for  it  does  n't  pay  to  send  flour  to  the  seaboard. 
"I  am  not  a  landlord,"  said  the  miller,  "and  the  farmers 
speak  frankly  before  me.  In  their  hearts  they  don't 
want  Home  Rule,  and  are  sick  of  the  National  League, 
Unless  a  man  wants  to  get  a  slap  at  a  neighbor,  he  would 
rather  be  rid  of  the  League.  The  only  people  who  gain 
by  it  are  particular  shop-keepers  who  are  secretaries  or 
treasurers  of  the  local  branches. 

"  A  majority  of  the  people  are  for  Gladstone's  bill,  but 
a  good  system  of  local  self-government  twenty  years  ago 
would  have  saved  us  all  this  trouble.  In  the  union  the 
Nationalists  are  a  majority,  and  they  obstruct  business 
and  take  every  opportunity  of  insulting  us.  *  The  voice 
of  the  people  is  against  landlords  and  Protestants,  and  I 
go  with  the  voice,'  said  my  gardener  to  me  when  I  was  a 
candidate  for  office. 

"  There  would  be  protection  here  in  a  moment,  if  there 
was  the  power,  for  nine  tenths  of  all  classes  favor  it. 
You  do  meet  an  odd  free-trader  now  and  then,  but  I 


68  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

rarely  come  across  one.  All  manufactured  articles,  I 
think,  should  be  taxed, — flour,  for  instance,  but  not 
wheat. 

"I  don't  believe  in  Home  Rule.  An  Irish  govern- 
ment would  be  practically  bankrupt ;  it  could  n't  borrow 
money  even  at  twelve  per  cent.  There  would  also  be 
much  petty  persecution  of  the  Protestants.  The  Irish 
are  less  religious  than  they  were,  but  they  are  more 
bigoted  ;  their  antipathy  to  Protestants  rests  on  the  idea 
that  every  Protestant  is  a  friend  of  England,  while  they 
wish  to  get  rid  of  England  altogether.  The  motives  of 
the  leaders  are  largely  selfish.     Is  n't  it  much  pleasanter 

for to  get  three  hundred  pounds  a  year  to  go  to 

Westminster  and  bait  Lord  Hartington,  than  to  earn 
twelve  shillings  a  week  as  a  stone  cleaver  ? 

"  It  is  human  nature  to  wish  to  get  every  thing  as  cheap 
as  possible,  and  that  is  the  case  with  the  farmers  and  the 
land.  The  Irish  farmers  have  found  out  that  the  Land 
Commissioners  will  reduce  the  rent  enormously  on  an 
uncultivated  farm  in  bad  order,  and  they  act  accordingly. 
Still  every  one  knows  that  the  last  five  years  have  been 
very  bad,  and  this  is  the  worst  of  all.  As  to  coercion, 
what  the  papers  say  is  all  nonsense.  The  matter  with 
Ireland  is  that  we  have  license  here  instead  of  liberty." 

A    NATIONALIST    LEADER    IN    COUNTY    KILKENNY. 

My  companion  was  a  self-made  man  in  an  old  sleepy 
town.  We  walked  up  and  down  the  long  promenade  by 
the  river's  side,  fringed  with  trees,  and  crowded  with 
young  men  and  girls  strolling  in  their  Sunday  clothes. 
As  soon  as  we  could  find  a  comfortable  bench  a  little 
apart  from  the  line  of  people,  who  were  perpetually 
saluting  us,   my  companion  composed  himself  to  talk 


IN  LEINSTER.  69 

"  Look  at  that  weed-grown  ditch,"  he  said,  pointing  to 
an  old  embankment  at  our  feet.  "That  was  to  have 
been  a  canal,  leading  to  the  sea,  to  bring  provisions  to 
the  town.  ;^25,ooo  was  spent  on  it,  but  it  was  never 
finished.  The  canal  was  planned  by  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment a  hundred  years  ago.  Now  it  is  a  ditch  full  of 
rushes. 

"  There  used  to  be  a  manufactory  of  blankets  here  ; 
there  were  a  thousand  hand-looms  ;  there  were  hatters, 
boot-makers  and  glove-makers  here.  These  have  all  van- 
ished off  the  face  of  the  earth,  before  English  competi- 
tion. It  is  like  the  large  shop  crippling  the  smaller 
shops.  Home  Rule  would  have  kept  these  industries 
alive  by  wise  enouragement.  As  it  is,  the  agitation  for 
home  manufactures  has  at  last  created  a  demand  for 
Irish  woollens,  and  the  woollen  factory  has  recently  been 
restored. 

"  It  is  natural  to  think  that  protection  would  help  to 
restore  our  industries,  but  there  are  other  means. 

"  At  present  there  is  great  need  of  technical  education. 
That  ruined  flour-mill  below  us  I  should  like  to  turn 
into  a  paper-mill,  but  I  don't  know  how  to  make  paper. 
We  are  not  a  travelling  people  and  know  nothing  about 
the  trade  and  the  methods  of  manufacture  in  use  by  the 
rest  of  the  world.  We  depend  solely  on  the  produce  of 
the  land.  I  would  have  a  technical  school  in  each  prov- 
ince, to  teach  chemistry,  political  economy,  etc.,  and 
also  to  be  a  centre  of  commercial  information  about  the 
needs  of  different  markets  and  the  current  prices. 

"  The  Protestants  fear  Catholic  oppression.  There  is, 
however,  little  bigotry  here.  Sir  J.  Gray,  M.P.  for  Kil- 
kenny six  years  ago,  was  a  Protestant.     ,  who  has 

been  town  clerk  of for  fifty  years,  is  a  Protest- 


70  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

ant,  appointed  by  the  old  Catholic  corporation,  at  a  time 
when  a  Catholic  would  not  be  tolerated  in  office  in 
a  Protestant  town.  A  few  months  ago  he  was  retired 
on  pension  by  a  Catholic  board.  A  Protestant  was 
appointed  sessional  clerk  for  the  county.  I  believe 
that,  so  far  from  a  Home-Rule  government  being  a  gov- 
ernment by  ecclesiastics,  after  Home  Rule  has  been 
granted  the  power  of  the  priests  will  begin  to  wane. 
When  the  people  have  got  the  power  into  their  own 
hands  and  have  acquired  the  habit  of  thinking  for  them- 
selves, they  will  ignore  the  priest  in  politics, — and  though 
the  majority  of  the  Nationalist  party  at  present  are  co- 
operating with  the  priests  in  this  agitation,  still,  they  are 
not  men  who  will  allow  the  priests  to  govern  them. 
They  are  using  the  priests  for  their  own  purposes.  It 
was  the  tyranny  of  the  English  government  that  gave  the 
priests  their  power  in  the  past,  for  the  people  had  only 
the  priests  to  look  to  for  guidance.  Take  away  the 
English  government  and  let  the  people  govern  them- 
selves, and  the  priests  will  at  once  lose  their  political 
power.  The  best  proof  of  this  is  that  in  all  countries 
where  the  priests  have  once  had  political  influence,  they 
have  lost  it,  as  in  France  and  Italy. 

"  I  pledge  my  word,  though  a  good  Catholic,  that  I 
think  there  would  be  more  chance,  if  there  were  any 
chance,  of  making  Ireland  Protestant,  by  granting  Home 
Rule  than  by  leaving  things  as  they  are.  The  priests,  I 
don't  think,  care  a  halfpenny  ticket  about  Home  Rule, 
but  they  have  to  follow  the  agitation.  Religious  bigotry 
will  decline.  Beyond  a  doubt,  in  the  event  of  Home 
Rule,  this  place  will  be  very  much  Americanized,  and 
America  is  certainly  not  a  priest-ridden  country. 

"  There  is  intimidation  in  the  country  at  present,  but 


IN  LEINSTER.  7 1 

a  Home-Rule  government  could  put  down  intimidation 
in  three  days,  not  so  much  by  putting  people  in  jail  as 
by  creating  a  popular  sentiment  against  it. 

"  There  is  not  much  socialism  in  Ireland,  for  it  is 
opposed  by  the  Church,  and  the  farmers  so  soon  as  they 
get  the  land  will  become  conservative.  Men  will  always 
try  to  improve  their  position,  and  the  laborers  individu- 
ally may  try  to  get  land,  but  that  they  will  agitate  gen- 
erally against  the  farmers,  I  don't  believe.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  the  farmers  might  not  be  so  keen  about 
Home  Rule  if  they  got  the  land  first  ;  but  the  traders  in 
the  towns  will  have  still  to  be  reckoned  with. 

"Absenteeism  works  great  evils  in  County  Kilkenny. 
Lord  Ormond  draws  some  ^20,000  a  year  from  the 
county  and  spends  it  elsewhere,  and  yet  he  has  never 
asked  a  favor  from  his  town  that  has  not  been  granted, 
in  one  case  a  grant  of  land,  and  at  another  time  riparian 
rights.  Now,  however,  the  object  of  the  agitation  is,  of 
course,  to  make  the  life  here  disagreeable  to  the  land- 
lords. 

"  The  Land  Acts  have  not  finally  settled  the  land 
question.  The  courts  at  first  gave  miserably  small  re- 
ductions. The  costs  of  the  courts  are  excessive.  On 
one  property,  the  Shea  estate,  it  will  take  five  years  for 
the  reductions  to  pay  off  the  costs. 

"  To-day  the  crops  are  poor  even  where  land  is  good. 
Oats  and  barley  are  a  quarter  crop.  Fifty  per  cent,  re- 
duction is  necessary  this  year. 

"  The  evils  of  absenteeism  and  the  evils  of  landlordism 
can  be  got  rid  of  only  by  a  comprehensive  system  of 
land  purchase,  and  that  is  possible  only  by  Home  Rule. 

"  A  bill  has  been  suggested  making  the  purchase  com- 
pulsory on  the  tenants  of  any  estate  on  the  option  of  the 


72  IN    CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

landlord,  the  purchase  money  to  be  guaranteed  by  county 
boards.  Such  a  bill  would  be  ridiculous.  The  onus  of  cul- 
tivation is  now  on  the  landlord  ;  for  a  landlord  has  either 
to  cultivate  the  land  himself  or  to  get  some  one  else  to 
cultivate  it  for  him.  Such  an  onus  in  a  bad  year  is  a 
burden,  and  ought  not  to  be  transferred  to  the  tenant 
without  his  voluntary  consent. 

"  Again,  any  such  guaranty  would  be  absurd.  Sup- 
pose the  price  fixed  be  exorbitant ;  is  it  just  that  the 
county  should  be  liable  ?  Those  on  whose  shoulders  the 
taxes  are  to  be  imposed  ought  to  have  a  voice  in  fixing 
the  amount  of  the  taxes.  If  a  county  board  is  to  be 
taxed  as  a  guaranteeing  board,  it  ought  to  have  the  power 
of  determining  the  amount  of  the  guaranty,  or  tax,  or 
price  of  purchase.  A  special  elective  board  would  have 
to  be  created  for  the  purpose,  for  a  grand  jury  is  neither 
elective  nor  representative. 

"  The  only  alternative,  if  the  government  pass  a  Pur- 
chase Bill  and  determine  by  officials  the  amount  to  be 
paid,  is  for  them  to  give  an  imperial  guaranty.  The 
very  meaning  of  '  guaranty  '  is  that  the  guarantor  has  a 
fund  over  and  above  the  sum  guaranteed,  something  be- 
sides the  actual  thing  guaranteed.  If  the  imperial  gov- 
ernment pay  too  much  for  the  land,  they  have  other  re- 
sources ;  but  a  county  board  would  have  nothing  over 
and  above  the  land  of  the  county,  and  the  value  of  that 
or  a  possibly  exorbitant  price  for  that,  is  what  it  is  pro- 
posed to  guaranty.  How  can  you  get  a  guaranty  out 
of  impoverished  land  in  Connemara,  so  much  rushes, 
bog,  and  rock? 

"Why  should  the  government  exact  a  county  guaran- 
ty ?  Why  not  make  six  counties  the  unit  of  guaranty, 
for  the  larger  the  area  the  stronger  and  the  less  onerous 
would  be  the  guaranty  ? 


IN  LEINSTER.  73 

"  Again,  the  imperial  government  confiscated  my  an- 
cestors' property,  and  gave  it  to  others.  Now  that  they 
restore  it  to  me,  why  should  they  make  me  assume  a 
heavy  obligation  ? 

"  The  only  other  kind  of  guaranty  I  can  think  of  be- 
sides an  imperial  guaranty  is  a  guaranty  by  a  Home- 
Rule  Parliament.  If  an  imperial  guaranty  is  impossible, 
the  land  question  can  be  settled  only  by  an  Irish 
Parliament. 

*'  It  might  be  made  a  condition  of  granting  Home  Rule 
that  the  Home-Rule  Parliament  should  settle  the  land 
question  and  guaranty  to  the  landlords  a  certain  yearly 
percentage  equal  to  the  current  price  of  money  on  the 
value  of  their  property,  according  to  a  valuation  previous- 
ly made,  until  such  time  as  the  purchase  money  has  been 
paid  in  full.  That  would  be  a  fair  plan,  and  the  only 
practicable  one  ;  and  I  don't  believe  there  is  any  proba- 
bility that  a  Home-Rule  Parliament  would  ever  break  a 
condition  of  such  a  sort  precedent  to  Home  Rule  itself. 

"We  have  come  round  again  to  Home  Rule.  Glad- 
stone's bill  is  open  to  criticism.  I  am  certainly  in  favor 
of  keeping  our  representatives  in  Parliament.  It  will  be 
better  for  the  imperial  government  for  us  to  have  a  voice 
in  imperial  affairs  ;  it  will  give  Irishmen  a  chance  to 
work  and  speak  in  England,  and  will  tend  to  preserve 
amity.  The  obstruction  which  was,  I  admit,  vicious  in 
the  past  will  cease  when  the  causes  of  it  are  removed. 

"  Then,  no  matter  how  parties  may  change  and  shift  in 
Ireland  under  Home  Rule,  it  will  make  no  difference  to 
England  so  long  as  hatred  of  England  does  not  increase  ; 
and  that,  I  believe,  will  not  be  the  case,  for  Home  Rule 
is  not  an  opening  wedge  for  separation.  That,  indeed, 
would  be  impossible,  for  a  few  men  with  sticks  in  their 
hands  are  not  an  army  and  cannot  make  a  revolution." 


74  I^  CASTLE   AND    CAB IX. 

A    KILKENNY    MANUFACTURER. 

This  is  a  man  of  great  energy  of  character,  which  has 
built  up  a  large  and  prosperous  business,  and  won  him 
the  admiration  and  love  of  the  people.  Although  a 
Protestant  and  not  active  in  public  life,  he  has  been  pub- 
licly honored  by  a  Nationalist  and  Catholic  corporation. 
Every  one  speaks  Avell  of  him.  How  does  such  a  man 
regard  the  political  and  social  questions  of  the  day  ?  As 
we  strolled  through  his  long  green-houses,  he  tried  to  de- 
scribe to  me  his  state  of  mind, — one  that  seems  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  more  thoughtful,  serious,  and  con- 
scientious business  men  throughout  Ireland. 

''Home  Rule,"  he  said,  "means  throwing  the  entire 
political  power  of  the  country  into  the  hands  of  the 
Catholic  priests.  The  lower  orders  will  do  exactly  what 
the  priests  tell  them.  The  influence  of  the  priests  in  pol- 
itics is,  however,  not  so  great  as  it  will  be.  In  a  move- 
ment like  this,  the  great  political  feeling  that  is  excited 
for  the  moment  excludes  all  others,  and  the  religious 
feeling  is  suppressed  ;  but  so  soon  as  the  political  ques- 
tion is  settled,  the  religious  feeling,  which  is  now  only 
latent,  will  predominate.  I  regret  this,  not  so  much  be- 
cause it  will  be  injurious  to  the  Protestants,  as  because 
it  will  be  fatal  to  the  country,  for  no  country  can  be 
properly  governed  by  a  body  of  ecclesiastics. 

"  An  infallible  church,  however,  must  be  a  persecuting 
church  :  it  can  allow  nothing  to  stand  up  against  it. 
They  might  take  our  churches  from  us,  but  they  might 
do  infinitely  more  serious  damage  by  petty  persecution. 
It  would  be  quite  possible  to  make  the  country  too  hot 
for  a  Protestant  to  live  in  it.  There  are  many  liberal 
Catholics,  but  in  the  practical  working  of  Home  Rule 
would  not  they  be  thrust  aside  ?     Archbishop  Walsh  said 


IN  LEINSTER.  75 

once  that  it  was  infamous  that  in  the  CathoHc  city  of 
Dublin  the  finest  site  should  be  occupied  by  a  Protestant 
university." 

I  referred  to  the  popular  discontent,  and  the  apparent 
inefficacy  of  the  land  acts  to  check  it.  ''They  are  all 
mere  stop-gaps,"  said  he.  "What  other  remedy  is  there 
but  Home  Rule  ?  I  cannot  suggest  any,  Gladstone's 
speech  was  an  able  argument,  but  T  have  been  and  am  of 
the  opinion  that  Home  Rule  is  not  workable  ;  that  things 
would  come  either  to  a  separation,  for  the  people  are 
more  or  less  in  favor  of  separation,  or  to  the  restoration 
of  the  present  conditions  ;  and  meantime  the  country 
would  be  kept  in  hot  water,  by  which  I  mean  that  there 
would  be  no  place  for  a  business  man  in  it.  I  would,  how- 
ever, certainly  be  a  Home  Ruler,  if  I  could  convince 
myself  that  the  country  would  settle  down  under  it. 

"  I  am  afraid  that  Irish  discontent  is  a  permanent  evil. 
In  1782  the  Irish  Parliament  became  practically  inde- 
pendent, the  country  may  have  prospered,  but  ten  years 
afterwards  it  was  in  a  state  of  rebellion,  and  the  rebellion 
would  have  effected  a  revolution,  if  it  had  not  been  sub- 
dued by  force  of  arms. 

"  If  the  bulk  of  the  people  were  agreed  on  this  subject 
as  they  are  in  the  South  and  West,  there  might  be  some 
hope  ;  but  the  better  and  more  energetic  classes  of  the 
North  are  against  it  to  a  man. 

"It  is  true  that,  business  will  never  prosper  till  the 
political  question  is  settled.  What  chiefly  affects  busi- 
ness is  confidence  or  the  want  of  it.  Would  the  country 
at  large  have  sufficient  confidence  in  a  Home-Rule  gov- 
ernment ?  The  whole  thing  is  a  gigantic  experiment, 
and  it  is  very  difficult  to  know  beforehand  how  it  will 
turn  out. 


*l6  JN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  The  welfare  of  England  is  largely  our  welfare.  If 
England  were  reduced  to  a  third-rate  power  to-morrow 
and  its  wealth  dispersed,  we  should  seriously  suffer  here. 
But  whether  a  Home-Rule  Parliament  might  not  interfere 
with  English  success  at  a  critical  moment,  I  really  cannot 
decide. 

"  Peasant  proprietorship  would  be  beneficial  to  busi- 
ness, for  there  would  then  be  no  absentees,  and  all  the 
money  got  from  the  land,  after  the  purchase  money  was 
paid,  would  be  spent  in  the  country.  I  don't  think  na- 
tionalization of  the  land  will  take  place  under  Home 
Rule,  because  of  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  clergy, 
and  of  the  land  hunger,  which  is  as  great  as  ever  it  was. 
The  insecurity  of  tenure  was  what  specially  impoverished 
the  country,  and  if  the  people  would  only  settle  down 
peaceably,  without  Home  Rule,  the  country  would  pros- 
per, but  that  they  will  not  do. 

"  The  proclamation  of  the  League  was  unwise.  It 
ought  to  have  been  suppressed  at  first.  It  is  the  nature 
of  things  to  culminate,  and  then  to  decline,  and  the 
League  was  beginning  to  decline.  The  best  way  of 
treating  it  would  have  been  to  despise  it.  The  League 
has  never  been  in  violent  opposition  to  the  law.  The 
people  here  were  never  very  enthusiastic  about  it ;  those 
most  so  were  some  workingmen  who  had  been  out  in 
the  Fenian  movement.  As  to  Home  Rule,  however,  the 
people  almost  to  a  man  are  in  favor  of  it.  The  franchise 
is  now  almost  manhood  suffrage,  and  men  of  the  lower 
classes  always  like  to  do  things  in  a  flock  ;  they  don't 
like  to  be  on  the  losing  side,  and  always  vote  for  the 
man  they  expect  to  win.  It  would  require  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  and  the  whole  English  army  to  put  this 
movement  down.     The  English  government  here  is  now 


IN  LEINSTER.  J  J 

only  nominal,  and  Home  Rule  is  safe  to  come  sooner  or 
later. 

"  Some  advantages  may  come  with  it.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  capital  lying  idle  here,  that  a  bounty  sys- 
tem could  make  operative,  besides  tempting  more.  Pro- 
tection, generally,  however,  would  be  impracticable  on 
account  of  the  laborers  who  would  be  unwilling  to  pay 
more  for  food  or  clothing.  The  falling  off  in  business, 
however,  I  do  not  attribute  wholly  to  the  agitation,  but 
partly  to  the  general  depression.  The  telegraph  and 
railways,  again,  would  make  rebellion  very  difficult. 

"  But,  in  spite  of  this,  I  must  say  that  it  is  my  firm  con- 
viction that  we  shall  get  Home  Rule  ;  that  in  ten,  twenty, 
or  more  years,  there  will  be  either  such  anarchy  here  or 
so  general  a  rebellion  for  complete  separation  that  the 
English  government  must  interfere  and  put  us  back 
where  we  are  now,  and  that  this  series  of  movements  and 
counter-movements  will  be  continued  ad  infinitum.  Of 
the  Land  Acts  I  have  little  more  hope,  for,  as  I  have 
said  before,  they  are  mere  stop-gaps, — and,  besides,  the 
Irish  land-hunger  and  thriftlessness  will  create  a  new 
class  of  landlords,  who  again  will  have  to  be  expropri- 
ated." 

"You  seem  painfully  pessimistic,"  I  could  not  help  re- 
marking as  I  shook  hands. 

"  1  wish  I  could  be  otherwise,"  he  replied,  "but  I  am 
simply  stating,  as  frankly  as  possible,  my  honest  thoughts, 
so  far  as  I  know  them.  And  in  spite  of  all,  there  will  be 
no  unreasonable  opposition  to  Home  Rule  here  ;  we  will 
give  it  a  fair  trial.  Mr.  Jones  in  New  Ross  recently 
transferred  a  large  factory  for  dressing  skins  to  England, 
but  I  don't  think  I  would  transfer  my  business  even  if  I 
could,  as  I  couldn't," 


PART    IL— IN    MUNSTER. 

A    CORK   NATIONALIST. 

A  YOUNG  solicitor  at  the  office  of  the  League  I  asked 
about  the  alleged  excesses  caused  by  the  Plan  of  Cam- 
paign. "  The  tenant  farmers,"  he  said,  "have  enor- 
mous respect  for  the  word  '  rent.'  A  money-lender  here 
told  me  the  other  day  that  they  raise  money  at  extraordi- 
nary rates  to  meet  their  rent. 

"  '  No  rent '  is  not  the  meaning  of  the  people,  though 
the  cry  might  not  be  so  unjust  as  it  seems  to  be.  The 
judicial  reduction  of  rents  is  in  some  sort  a  measure  of 
what  the  landlords  have  taken  in  excess  of  their  just 
dues.  The  excess  that  the  tenants  have  thus  been  shown 
to  have  paid  would  at  a  moderate  compensation  amount 
to  ten  years'  purchase  of  their  farms.  So  we  might 
argue  that  no  more  rent  is  due.  Thousands  of  pounds, 
moreover,  is  now  owing  to  shopkeepers,  and  those  debts 
are  as  just  obligations  as  the  rent.  The  farmers,  how- 
ever, would  be  glad  to  settle.  Many  of  them  purchased 
under  Lord  Ashbourne's  Act  at  prices  far  in  excess  of 
the  value  of  the  land. 

"  Cork  County  is  free  from  crime.  The  East  Riding 
is  quite  free  and  the  West  Riding  nearly  so.  At  the  last 
assizes  in  the  city  only  four  petty  bills  were  presented  by 
the  grand  jury.  There  are  only  four  or  five  places  where 
there  is  any  outrage  or  boycotting,  and  that  is  where  the 
landlords  are  fighting  the  Plan  of  Campaign.     There  are 

78 


IN  MUNSTER.  79 

outrages  at  Millstreet,  but  there  is  the  only  priest  in  the 
county  who  speaks  against  the  League.  It  is  a  bad  thing 
when  the  priest  is  not  in  sympathy  with  the  people,  for  then 
he  cannot  restrain  them.  If  the  League  is  suppressed,  a 
great  deterrent  of  crime  will  cease  to  operate,  for  the  peo- 
ple will  then  be  acting  for  themselves,  without  their  leaders 
and  priests  working  with  them  and  directing  them." 

"  Is  the  Plan  of  Campaign  just,"  I  asked,  "  in  insisting 
on  all  the  tenants  being  given  the  same  reduction,  no 
matter   how   different    their   circumstances  ? " 

"  While  twenty  can  pay  their  rents,"  was  the  answer, 
"  forty  often  cannot.  If  the  twenty,  who  perhaps  have 
large  means,  pay,  the  forty  small  tenants  are  evicted,  at 
the  mercy  of  the  landlord.  It  then  is  an  act  of  charity 
on  the  part  of  the  twenty  to  throw  in  their  lot  with  their 
neighbors.  On  the  Luggacurran  estate  one  tenant  had 
an  estate  rated  at  ;^90o  a  year,  and  another  at  ^1,400. 
They  were  the  first  to  suffer.  They  were  able  to  pay,  not 
out  of  their  profits,  but  out  of  capital  which  the  rest  did  n't 
have. 

"  Free  trade  is  not  worth  discussing,  but  there  used  to 
be  any  number  of  mills  about  Cork  which  have  long 
ceased  to  exist.  When  these  mills  were  burnt  down  it 
was  not  worth  while  to  rebuild  them.  One  was  burnt 
lately  here,  and  another  two  years  ago  at  Midleton. 
Neither  has  been  rebuilt.  Only  two  mills  are  now  oper- 
ating here.  Forty  years  ago  my  father  was  a  great  buyer 
of  wheat  hefe  for  export  to  Glasgow,  now  American  flour 
is  delivered  here  almost  cheaper  than  the  domestic  grain. 

"  There  used  to  be  a  great  export  trade  in  provisions 
here.  Now  it  is  gone,  except  the  export  of  butter.  The 
leather  trade  is  also  failing,  and  there  are  only  two  or 
three  tanneries  where  there  used  to  be  fifty. 


8o  IN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  To  some  extent,  perhaps,  this  loss  of  trade  is  due  to 
the  decline  in  population. 

"  What  particular  benefits  do  I  expect  from  Home 
Rule  ?  The  Irish  Parliament  would  foster  the  fisheries 
by  grants  more  wisely  and  energetically  than  the  English 
government.  For  instance,  small  protection  harbors  and 
piers  are  needed  along  the  coast.  Now  we  cannot  com- 
pete with  English,  Scotch,  or  French  fishermen. 

"There  would  be  a  body  of  clever  men  anxiously 
studying  and  encouraging  Irish  industries.  So  much 
intelligence  applied  to  one  object  would  be  sure  to 
have  some  influence  for  good.  Judicious  bounties 
would  start  manufactures.  There  would  be  a  great 
saving  in  the  expense  of  private  legislation.  The  in- 
creased economy  and  the  wise  encouragement  of  trade 
might  fairly  be  expected  to  bring  back  some  of  the  pros- 
perity Ireland  enjoyed  under  the  old  Parliament,  when 
all  the  finer  public  buildings  in  Dublin  were  erected." 

I  asked  whether  it  might  not  be  dangerous  to  have  the 
judges  appointed  by  a  Dublin  Parliament  in  view  of  the 
violence  of  local  prejudice.  "  On  the  contrary/'  said 
he,  "  the  fair  administration  of  justice  would  then  be  the 
interest  of  everybody." 

A  BOYCOTTED  FARMER  IN  COUNTY  CORK. 

In  the  list  of  boycotted  persons  published  by  the  Cork 
Defence  Union  my  attention  was  caught  by  the  case  of 
J.  McCarthy,  for  the  cause  assigned  for  the  boycotting 
was  that  he  "  took  a  neighboring  farm  which  had  been 
vacant  for  two  years  previously."  One  fine  morning  I 
drove  out  to  see  him,  in  the  townland  of  Barracharang, 
fifteen  Irish  miles  from  Cork.  His  house,  a  square,  low 
wooden  building,  is  at  the  end  of  a  long  muddy  lane,  sur- 


IN  MUNSTER.  8 1 

rounded  by  a  morass  of  sodden  manure.  A  man  with 
goatee  and  lean  cheeks  like  a  typical  Yankee,  with  an 
honest  voice  and  keen,  clear  eyes,  John  McCarthy  wel- 
comed us  with  the  enthusiastic  warmth  of  one  who  sel- 
dom sees  a  friendly  face. 

''When  we  took  this  farm  last  April  four  years,"  he 
began,  "  there  was  no  boycotting.  The  farm  was  not 
considered  an  '  evicted  '  farm,  for  the  tenants  had  gone 
to  law  with  one  another  and  had  reduced  themselves 
to  nothing  when  Mrs.  Longfield  evicted  them.  The  law- 
suit began  in  1872,  and  every  one  from  here  to  Cork 
knows  that  the  farm  was  vacant  for  years  before  we  took 
it.  Six  or  eight  of  the  neighbors  bid  for  the  farm,  but  I 
was  preferred  as  I  had  been  a  tenant  of  Mrs.  Longfield's 
son.  For  many  months  the  people  were  friendly.  Then 
Callaghan,  one  of  the  former  tenants,  complained  that  he 
would  have  got  the  farm  if  we  had  n't  interfered.  Then 
a  great  meeeting  was  held  at  Donoughmore  ;  they  had 
two  M.  P.'s  down  here,  J.  C.  Flynn  and  Dr.  Tanner,  who 
told  them  lots  of  lies,  told  them  that  we  were  land-grab- 
bers. Mr.  Flynn  called  on  every  one  to  boycott  us,  and 
not  to  speak  to  us.  Dr.  Tanner,  who  admitted  to  me 
that  this  was  not  a  '  grabbed  farm,'  did  nothing  but  de- 
nounce land-grabbing.  The  people  made  up  an  effigy 
of  me,  painted  it,  put  a  pipe  in  its  mouth,  set  it  on  a  don- 
key, marched  it  up  and  down  the  village  at  the  time 
of  the  meeting,  and  then  threw  it  down  and  battered  it 
to  bits.     They  called  us  traitors. 

"  In  August  I  offered  for  sale  a  lot  of  meadowing. 
Suddenly  notices  were  put  up  warning  people  not  to 
buy  it,  and  I  did  n't  sell  a  pound  of  the  forty  acres. 
On  August  7th  one  of  the  two  smiths  in  Donoughmore 
lefused  to  work  for  me,  and  the  other  was  threatened 


82  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

and  soon  boycotted  me  too.  All  the  local  tradesmen 
boycotted  me.  The  next  year  the  League  pressed  my 
men  to  leave  me.  They  were  hooted  and  threatened. 
June  13th  they  left  me,  and  for  some  weeks  we  had 
no  help  at  all.  In  September  I  hired  a  neighbor's  boy 
for  twelve  months,  and  before  two  weeks  were  out  shots 
were  fired  into  the  windows  of  this  room,  the  bedroom, 
and  the  kitchen.  The  bullets  made  these  holes  in  the 
shutters.  No  one  was  arrested,  though  we  could  give 
a  strong  guess  at  the  parties.  The  day  after  I  let  the 
boy  go.  That  day,  a  Sunday,  I  was  hooted  at  mass,  and 
stones  were  fired  at  me  as  I  left  the  chapel.  The  Sunday 
after  my  wife  was  bedaubed  with  rotten  eggs  in  the  chapel- 
yard.  The  next  Sunday  my  brother  and  his  wife  were 
bedaubed  with  rotten  eggs  and  hit  with  stones,  and  neither 
she  nor  this  woman  have  been  to  chapel  since. 

"  In  October  or  November  I  went  to  Macroom  fair 
with  some  cattle.  I  sold  them,  and  the  purchaser  after 
paying  a  deposit  drove  them  into  a  yard.  Two  fellows 
warned  the  man  the  cattle  were  boycotted,  and  they  were 
at  once  turned  out  of  the  yard.  They  were  returned  to 
me  and  I  brought  them  home  again.  From  that  day  to 
this  we  have  sold  no  cattle  at  any  fair  or  market.  On  a 
Patrick's  day  I  sent  a  lot  of  pigs  to  Kanturk.  At  mid- 
night four  men,  one  the  secretary  of  the  League,  and  an- 
other one  of  the  committeemen,  started  from  here  and 
got  to  Kanturk  before  my  boys  did.  The  boys  thought 
they  had  better  bring  the  pigs  back. 

"  For  a  time  we  were  in  a  great  hobble,  for  my  butter 
was  boycotted.  I  cannot  get  a  tailor,  carpenter,  or  black- 
smith nearer  than  Cork,  and  even  in  Cork  tradespeople 
who  used  to  give  us  credit  now  refuse  it.  Our  letters 
have  to  be  left  at  the  police  barracks,  for  no  one  dared  to 


IN  MUNSTER.  83 

bring  us  letters  from  the  place  the  post-boy  leaves  them. 
Laborers  I  can  get  only  through  the  Cork  Defence  Union. 
Our  neighbors  visit  us  only  on  the  sly,  at  night  and  in  dis- 
guise ;  for  if  they  were  seen  speaking  to  us  they  say  they 
would  be  called  before  the  League. 

"  Those  two  young  chaps  were  confirmed  last  July. 
They  were  often  assaulted  on  their  way  to  chapel,  and  on 
the  day  of  the  Bishop's  visitation  one  was  brutally  beaten, 
and  his  face  cut  with  a  stone.  I  presented  him  next 
morning  to  the  Bishop,  and  he  threatened  to  excommu- 
nicate any  one  who  molested  people  in  their  religious 
duties. 

"  We  have  suffered  as  much  as  any  persons  in  County 
Cork.  Boycotting  is  worse  than  the  plague.  We  would 
have  given  up  the  farm  before  but  we  hoped  the  League 
would  be  suppressed,  and  we  believed  that  in  twelve 
months  after  that  we  would  have  quiet  again.  To  this 
day  half  the  people  say  and  think  that  we  are  wronged, 
but  no  one  dares  to  speak  to  us  openly  for  fear  of  the 
League.  This  June  two  years,  I  went  to  the  League 
rooms  in  Donoughmore,  before  the  committee,  and  of- 
fered to  give  up  the  farm  if  they  would  let  me  have  the 
laborers  to  save  the  crops.  The  chairman  said  that  the 
rule  was  that  I  must  give  up  the  farm  presently  and  with- 
out conditions  ;  that  was  the  order  of  the  central  board. 
But  for  the  Defence  Union  and  that  little  party  of  land- 
lords I  and  my  family  would  be  in  the  workhouse. 

"  There  is  a  good  deal  of  boycotting  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. The  police  of  Donoughmore  are  boycotted.  No- 
tices boycotting  them  were  pasted  even  on  the  donkeys' 
backs.  The  young  women  are  forbidden  to  speak  to  a 
policeman — if  a  girl  does  so,  she  is  boycotted.  The  Ca- 
tholic curate  about  a  year  ago  denounced  a  young  man 


84  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

for  throwing  eggs  at  a  respectable  farmer.  The  people 
said  that  the  farmer's  daughter  had  held  a  policeman's 
head  while  he  was  having  a  tooth  drawn  ;  and  the  curate 
was  boycotted.  The  priests  get  turf,  hay,  and  oats  from 
the  farmers,  and  they  all  refused  to  give  him  any.  Two 
or  three  years  ago  the  parish  priest  was  boycotted  be- 
cause he  would  n't  join  the  League.  One  day  he  took 
two  loads  of  corn  to  a  farmer's  hay-yard  to  be  threshed, 
and  in  the  evening  the  neighbors  carted  it  all  back  to 
him,  just  as  it  was.  They  generally  refused  to  go  to  his 
stations  too. 

"  Timothy  Harlehy,  who  has  a  farm  next  mine  of 
some  sixty  acres,  was  evicted  May  last  by  his  landlord, 
Mr.  French.  For  several  nights  he  slept  out-of-doors 
and  his  wife  at  a  neighbor's.  He  then  was  put  back  as 
caretaker.  The  people  then  boycotted  Harlehy,  because 
I  suppose  he  did  n't  care  to  go  on  sleeping  for  ever  in 
the  open  air.  They  burnt  his  hay  rick.  They  broke  his 
mowing  machine  by  spiking  the  meadow  with  bits  of 
iron.  His  brother-in-law  took  off  a  cartload  of  Har- 
lehy's  corn  to  his  barn  to  thresh.  Two  or  three  nights 
afterwards  two  shots  were  fired  into  the  bedroom  of  the 
laborer  who  carted  the  corn.  The  m.an  explained  that 
the  corn  had  been  taken  in  payment  of  a  debt,  and  even 
then  there  was  a  great  fight  in  the  League  about  taking 
his  boycott  off.  Another  man,  Barratt,  helped  Harlehy 
in  threshing.  Barratt's  corn  happened  to  be  stacked  in 
the  field,  and  the  next  day  the  bindings  were  cut  and  the 
corn  scattered. 

"  We  have  been  under  police  protection  ever  since  our 
house  was  fired  into — two  policemen  sleep  here  every 
night,  and  we  feel  uneasy  if  they  are  late.  People  don't 
care  if  they  kill  a  man  about  here,  for  they  know  nothing 
will  happen  to  them  if  they  do. 


IN  MUNSTER.  85 

"  Some  six  years  ago  I  joined  the  League.  A  thresh- 
ing machine  was  promised  me  by  the  owner,  and  he  re- 
fused to  let  me  have  it  unless  I  joined.  I  was  afraid,  and 
I  went  in  with  another  farmer,  also  under  compulsion. 

"  Half  the  people  have  been  coerced  into  joining  the 
League.  The  respectable  farmers  don't  attend  the 
League  meetings  here,  and  the  parish  priest  does  not 
control  it.  If  one  of  the  members  has  a  spite  against 
you,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  you  will  be  boycotted  for 
one  reason  or  another.  The  farmers  are  getting  cool 
about  the  League.  It  has  been  necessary,  but  is  neces- 
sary no  longer  now  that  the  Land  Acts  have  been 
passed. 

"  The  land  is  very  poor  in  this  townland.  The  crops 
are  miserable.  Nothing  is  good  here  but  Champions. 
Rent  is  too  high  here.  I  am  paying  fourteen  shillings 
an  acre.  Some  of  the  land  is  boggy  and  not  worth  four 
shillings  an  acre,  but  some  of  the  arable  land  would  stand 
you  over  a  pound.  I  don't  believe  there  is  a  man  who 
can  make  his  present  rent.  But  the  landlord  is  a  good 
man  and  does  not  press  us.  We  were  given  25  per  cent, 
last  gale  day,  but  that  is  not  enough.  If  we  were  pressed 
every  man  would  be  evicted.  There  is  not  a  tenant  but 
owes  from  two  to  three  or  four  years'  rent  ;  yet  the  land- 
lord is  popular.  He  came  down  here  yesterday,  and  the 
village  band  turned  out  to  meet  him,  and  the  people  drew 
his  carriage  down  to  Donoughmore  Cross. 

"  There  are  talking  against  the  landlords  a  good  many 
Land  Leaguers  who  if  they  were  in  their  places  would  be 
much  worse.    A  little  while  ago,  before  Captain  Stokes,  R. 

M.,  one  D ,  a  National  Leaguer,  sued  a  laborer  for 

thirteen  shillings,  arrears  of  rent,  and  settled  the  case  in 
court  for  half  his  manure,  which  he  took  and  laid  out  on 
his  own  farm.     They  will  exact  the  last  farthing. 


86  IN   CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

"  There  are  two  sides  to  every  question.  What  do 
farmers  give  to  the  poor  ?  How  many  laborers  do  they 
employ  ?  Will  they,  when  they  become  proprietors, 
give  as  much  and  employ  as  many  as  the  large  land- 
lords ?  This  country  at  any  rate  will  never  be  without 
landlords.  These  may  be  hunted  out,  but  there  will 
be  new  ones  and  worse.  If  this  property  were  owned  by 
one  of  our  neighboring  farmers,  more  people  would  be 
evicted  than  are  now.  The  farmers  are  sharp  about 
money  matters.  Croften  here,  who  was  the  secretary 
of  the  League  and  is  now  the  postmaster,  owed  seven 
years'  rent  when  the  Arrears  Act  was  passed.  He  went 
into  court  and  had  the  arrears  wiped  off,  and  has  n't  paid 
a  halfpenny  since. 

"Bad  as  they  are  here,"  said  McCarthy,  as  I  turned  to 
go,  "  they  are  much  worse  elsewhere.  I  don't  even  con- 
demn boycotting  absolutely.  A  man  who  goes  behind 
another's  back  and  takes  his  farm,  might  be  fairly  boy- 
cotted ;  but  then  the  people  ought  to  make  sure  of  the 
facts." 

Something  that  Mrs.  McCarthy  said  showed  that  she 
had  some  opinions  of  her  own  about  the  reason  for  their 
being  so  persistently  boycotted.  Her  eyes  twinkled 
when  I  asked  her  to  tell  me  what  she  thought  about  it. 
"Well,"  she  said,  with  a  little  hesitation,  "the  leaders  of 
the  League  here  are  the  poorest  and  lowest  of  the  people. 
Chief  among  them  are  some  young  men  belonging  to  a 
wrangling  family  named  B .  Their  father  had  a  law- 
suit with  a  neighbor  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  ago,  and, 
when  the  suit  went  against  him,  hung  himself.     A  friendly 

farmer  told  us  that  one  of  the  B boys  said  we  had 

called  them  the  hangman's  sons.  We  would  never  have 
said  such  a  thing,  and  we  would  n't  say  so  now.     But 


IN  MUNSTER.  8/ 

there  was  a  boy  in  our  house  who  might  have  said  some- 
thing of  the  sort.     Then,  when  Callaghan  said  he  would 

have  got  the  land  if  we  had  n't  taken  it,  the  B s  were 

glad  to  turn  his  talk  against  us,  and  boycotted  us  out  of 
spite." 

I  drove  on  to  Donoughmore,  a  wretched  little  village, 
and  called  on  Father  Murphy,  the  Catholic  curate.  "  I 
know  nothing  about  the  merits  of  McCarthy's  case,"  said 
he,  "  and  wonder  how  you  came  to  hear  of  it.  This 
movement  began  with  the  tenants  pledging  themselves 
not  to  take  a  farm  from  which  another  had  been  evicted 
unjustly.  Then  the  principle  was  extended  to  all  evic- 
tions. This  may  explain  why  McCarthy  was  not  boy- 
cotted at  first.  The  principle  was  not  definitely  formu- 
lated for  some  time. 

"I  know  he  has  been  boycotted  very  hard.  His 
brother  and  his  brother's  wife,  as  well  as  his  personal 
family,  were  not  allowed  to  come  to  church,  and  have 
since  been  annoyed  coming  and  going.  Other  members 
of  the  congregation  were  not  allowed  to  sit  in  the  gallery 
with  them,  and  some  who  did  so  were  insulted.  McCarthy 
was  reputed  a  good,  honest  man  till  he  took  the  farm. 

''  No  clergyman  is  permitted  to  attend  a  political  meet- 
ing without  the  permission  of  the  parish  priest,  and  in 
this  parish  the  clergy  take  no  part  in  the  League. 

''  In  the  matter  of  boycotting,  I  distinguish  between 
active  and  passive  boycotting,  and  discountenance  active 
boycotting  only. 

"  Home  Rule  we  all  want,  because  the  Irish  are  a  na- 
tion, and  a  nation  ought  to  govern  itself.  Moreover,  the 
imperial  Parliament  has  been  drawing  the  money  out  of 
the  country.  A  home  Parliament  would  develop  our 
industries  by  advancing  money  and  by  giving  bonuses." 


88  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

I  then  tried  to  find  Bat  Callaghan's  public-house.  We 
had  to  ask  the  way.  At  one  house  the  driver  got  down 
and  knocked  at  the  door.  A  woman  opened  it,  and,  at 
sight  of  a  tall  man  in  a  long,  rough  coat,  ran  back,  shriek- 
ing hysterically  in  great  terror.  Finally  I  found  Cal- 
laghan,  an  old  man,  with  drooping  lip  and  shaking  hand. 
"  I  bought  the  land,"  he  said  slowly,  "  from  a  woman  who 
had  no  right  to  sell  her  son's  part,  but  I  knew  nothing  of 
it.  The  son  sued  me,  and  went  from  post  to  pillar.  At 
last,  I  was  only  entitled  to  one  third  of  the  farm,  though 
I  kept  possession  of  the  whole  of  it." 

"  My  father,"  the  daughter  explained,  "  had  paid  no 
rent  for  the  ten  years  when  he  was  in  possession,  and  the 
others  paid  nothing.  Then  the  landlord  evicted  them  all, 
and  got  the  whole  into  his  hand.  We  were  evicted  several 
times,  and  put  back  again.  It  was  twelve  months  from 
the  last  eviction  when  McCarthy  took  the  farm.  My 
mother  acted  as  caretaker  for  a  time,  living  here  and 
going  over  there  once  in  a  while.  For  a  year  or  two  there 
were  no  crops  on  the  place.  For  some  years  we  let  the 
neighbors  feed  their  cattle  off  it." 

"  The  landlord,"  said  Callaghan,  "  asked  me  to  bid  for 
the  farm,  and  I  offered  ^60,  three  pounds  less  than  the 
old  rent.  I  am  glad  I  did  not  get  it,  for  I  could  n't  have 
paid  the  money,  nor  could  the  cousin  who  was  going  to 
take  the  farm  in  my  name.  McCarthy  offered  the  old 
rent." 

"  They  are  boycotted  !  "  shrieked  Mrs.  Callaghan  glee- 
fully. "  When  they  went  to  mass  they  were  pelted  with 
stones  and  eggs.  No  one  will  speak  to  them  or  sit  in  the 
same  gallery  with  them.  Oh,  they  are  boycotted  !  As 
for  us,  we  are  as  much  after  the  old  farm  as  we  were  the 
day  we  left." 


IN  MUNSTER.  89 

"  McCarthy  came  here,"  suggested  the  daughter,  "  and 
offered  us  money  for  my  father's  good-will,  but  we 
would  n't  take  it." 

"  Did  you  see  the  place,"  asked  the  old  man,  "  covered 
with  stumps  of  trees  ?  The  landlord  gave  McCarthy 
and  a  few  others  leave  to  cut  wood  there.  Then  all  the 
neighbors  went  in,  and  every  man  had  his  tree,  the  whole 
country-side,  and  all  the  trees  were  cut  down  in  one  night." 
In  a  few  minutes  the  ruined  wood,  with  the  trees  sawn  off 
four  or  five  feet  from  the  ground,  loomed  weirdly  before 
us  in  the  moonlight  as  my  car  galloped  on  to  Cork. 

A    PLAN    OF    CAMPAIGN    ESTATE. 

Half-way  from  Fermoy  to  Mitchelstown  we  caught  the 
first  glimpse  of  the  gleaming  white  towers  of  Mitchels- 
town Castle.  "  Ha  !  ha  !  "  shouted  the  driver,  "  we  '11 
soon  have  the  green  flag  floating  there,  with  the  harp 
without  the  crown."  Soon  we  were  in  the  little  town,  a 
town  celebrated  in  the  old  posting  days,  but  now  deca- 
dent and  wellnigh  lifeless.  The  post-car  stops  in  a 
square,  where  on  the  broad  green  a  gayly  dressed  party 
are  playing  tennis.  The  old  ladies  from  the  "  College  " 
opposite,  where,  by  the  generosity  of  an  old  Lord  King- 
ston, twenty-six  ladies  in  reduced  circumstances  enjoy 
half  a  house  each  and  a  pound  a  week,  are  sunning 
themselves  near  the  tennis  nets.  A  tennis  tournament 
in  "  a  plan  of  campaign  "  town.  What  a  contrast !  Upon 
the  green  open  the  great  gates  of  the  demesne,  and  the 
broad  road  leads  slowly  up  to  the  castle,  more  splendid 
than  many  a  palace,  with  its  Gothic  entrance  flanked  by 
lofty  towers,  with  its  gallery  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
long,  and  eighty  bedrooms.  On  the  gravel-walk  pea- 
cocks are  jauntily  strutting. 


go  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

The  estate  is,  as  is  well  known,  one  of  the  most 
heavily  indebted  in  Ireland.  The  building  of  the  castle 
cost  fabulous  sums  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century, 
and  the  hospitality  of  Lord  Kingston,  the  friend  of 
George  IV.,  was  magnificent  but  ruinous.  In  1845  or 
1846  the  mortgage  on  the  property  was  foreclosed,  and 
the  story  of  the  seizure  and  the  fortnight's  siege  of  the 
castle  is  one  of  the  most  romantic  episodes  in  the  ro- 
mance of  "  New  Ireland."  In  1850  the  estate  was  sold 
under  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act,  and  for  a  time  con- 
trolled by  a  land  company.  Some  years  ago  the  mort- 
gages were  consolidated  into  a  single  mortgage  of  some 
^^240,000  to  the  Representative  Body  of  the  Church  of 
Ireland,  and  the  interest,  a  little  less  than  ;^9,5oo,  con- 
sumes yearly  three  quarters  of  the  entire  rental.  The 
rents  are  in  the  main  identical  with  those  in  force  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  and  average  less  than  those 
fixed  by  the  agent  of  the  Court  of  Chancery  in  1845-6. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  in  November,  1886, 
the  tenants  combined  to  demand  an  all-round  reduction 
of  25  per  cent,  a  reduction  which  if  granted  would  have 
swept  away  the  entire  surplus  above  the  mortgage  inter- 
est. Lady  Kingston,  acting  in  the  absence  of  her  hus- 
band, offered  to  give  reductions  of  from  10  to  30  per 
cent.,  according  to  individual  necessities, — and  the  plan 
of  campaign  was  adopted. 

Early  in  the  spring  a  public  auction  was  held  of  all 
the  cattle  on  the  estate.  The  object,  of  course,  was  to 
leave  nothing  for  the  landlord  to  distrain.  A  violent 
speech  was  made  by  Mr.  Mandeville,  M.  P.,  threatening 
those  tenants  who  still  held  aloof  from  the  combination. 
From  that  time  on  severe  boycotting  prevailed.  The 
night  of  February  5th  placards  were  posted  throughout 


IN  MUNSTER.  9 1 

the  country-side.  This  is  what  they  said  :  "  Boycott ! 
Boycott  !  !  Boycott  !  !  !  Fellow-countrymen,  be  not  de- 
ceived, boycotting  is  not  done  away  with.  Disregard 
the  language  of  cowardice,  no  matter  by  whom  uttered. 
Stand  firmly  by  your  homes,  by  your  wives,  and  little 
ones.  Strike  at  your  tyrants  !  All  your  hopes  and  for- 
tunes are  centred  in  this  fight.  Strike  '  now  or  never, 
now  and  forever,'  at  every  one  who  assists  Anna  King- 
ston, Lady  Kingston,  to  recover  oppressive  rents,  or  who 
pays  them.  Boycott  that  disgrace  to  her  sex — Anna 
Kingston,  the  grass  widow,  the  hard-hearted.  Boycott 
Frend,  the  agent,  the  pig-headed  representative  of  the 
Church  Body,  who  dismissed  the  laborers.  Boycott 
Bulldog  Maria  O'Grady,  solicitor,  who  betrayed  every 
client  who  had  the  misfortune  to  be  associated  with  him. 
Boycott  Benson,  the  insolent  whelp,  whose  insolence 
and  extortion  all  of  you  have  experienced.  Strike  at  the 
outposts  of  the  castle  ;  you  know  who  they  are.  Boy- 
cott Jim  Neill,  the  hangman,  and  family  ;  Neddy  Kelly, 
the  ex-farmer  ;  Dicky  FitzGibbon,  Clerk  of  the  Union, 
the  only  land-grabber  in  the  district,  and  his  brood  of 
upstarts  ;  gombeen-man  Coache,  and  his  apostate  wife, 
the  only  associate  of  Benson,  and  all  bailiffs  on  the 
estate, — shun  them.  Let  others,  too,  take  warning  and 
beware  of  their  fate,  or  their  turn  will  surely  come.  By 
order  of  the  Vigilance  Committee.  N.  B. — John  Cough- 
Ian,  of  Hemingstown,  has  paid  his  rent.  Boycott  him  and 
his  shorthorns,  and  dairy  farms.  Dairymen,  beware  !  " 
The  shopkeepers  in  town,  who  had  been  chiefly  sup- 
ported by  the  castle,  wrote  humble  letters  begging  to  be 
excused  from  filling  the  orders  of  Lady  Kingston.  So 
many  were  the  boycotted  people,  that  opposite  the  green 
a  shop  was  opened  by  Lady  Kingston  for  their  benefit ; 


92  JN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

every  thing  was  kept  there,  from  pork  to  pepper,  soda  to 
stockings,  and  young  ladies  ran  in  and  out  with  a  most 
amusing  air  of  proprietorship.  "  Bulldog  Maria  O'Grady  " 
was  boycotted.  *"  The  reason  I  have  n't  been  to  my 
office  lately,"  he  said,  "is  that  my  servant  has  been  sent 
off  to  America,  and  I  have  no  one  to  tidy  it  up.  In 
January  the  Leaguers  announced  that  they  would  n't  let 
me,  my  clerk,  servants,  or  their  children  go  to  the  parish 
church,  and  the  priest,  through  Father  Sexton,  re- 
quested me  not  to  go  for  the  sake  of  peace.  Two  old 
clients  of  mine,  one  a  shopkeeper  and  the  other  a  seeds- 
man, have  been  punished  by  fine  and  boycotting  for  em- 
ploying me.  They  threatened  to  boycott  O'Brien,  a 
magistrate,  for  employing  me,  and  he,  for  business  rea- 
sons, purchased  his  peace  with  them."  Benson,  "the  in- 
solvent whelp,"  was  boycotted.  "They  broke  the  skull 
of  the  bailiff  with  an  iron  hammer,  making  a  fearful 
wound.  The  sheriff  swore  he  saw  a  certain  man  strike 
him,  and  the  man  was  tried  but  acquitted."  Dicky  Fitz- 
Gibbon  and  his  "  brood  of  upstarts  "  were  boycotted. 
*'  His  daughter,  a  pretty  girl,  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  old, 
on  her  way  to  church,  was  pursued  by  a  hooting  mob,  and 
when  she  took  refuge  in  a  shop  the  shopkeeper  put  her 
out.  All  his  servants  have  left  him,  and  his  children  are 
not  allowed  to  go  to  school." 

"  The  tenant  right  on  the  estate  brings  as  high  a  price 
;is  ever.  For  instance,  February  ii,  1885,  James  Moore 
sold  to  his  son  on  his  marriage  thirty-four  statute  acres, 
the  rent  of  which  was  ;^2i,  for  ^^275,  and  a  covenant  to 
oupport  him  ;  January  29,  1885,  Mary  M.  sold  to  Patrick 
Clifford,  ten  acres  and  two  roods,  rented  for  seven 
guineas,  for  ;^i5o  ;  in  1886,  a  small  house,  held  under 
lease,  paying  lo^-.  a  year  ground  rent,  was  sold  for  ;!^5oo  ; 


IN  MUNSTER.  93 

April  2 2d,  Thornton  sold  to  Roach,  a  small  cottage  and 
nine  acres,  held  under  lease,  and  paying  ^5  a  year  rent, 
for  ^365  and  costs,  £\o  ;  June  i,  1887,  John  Quinlan 
sold  to  Daniel  Wallace,  a  small  plot  of  half  an  acre,  paying 
\os.  rent,  for  ^200  and  costs,  p^i2."  The  amount  of  the 
costs  surprised  me.  "What  the  landlord  and  tenant," 
said  Mr,  O'Grady,  "  used  to  settle  between  themselves  is 
now,  owing  to  the  recent  legislation,  transacted  through 
the  lawyers  and  the  court.  So  that  now  the  costs  amount 
to  pounds  instead  of  shillings.  ^5  is  the  usual  charge 
for  drawing  an  instrument  ;  the  fees  are  about  ^5  ;  and 
£2  for  my  perusal,  on  account  of  the  landlord.  The  office 
never  charges  for  drawing  such  instruments,  so  by  boy- 
cotting me  the  tenants  double  their  costs. 

"  The  people  are  demoralized.  They  dodge  their  own 
priests  if  they  can.  Near  Fermoy  they  nailed  up  the 
chapel  every  Sunday  for  five  or  six  months.  The  priests 
lose  money  hand  over  hand,  for  the  people  are  becoming 
independent  of  them  through  the  influence  of  returning 
American  Irish. 

"  Home  Rule  is  a  hollow  sham.  Six  hundred  thousand 
farmers  support  it  because  of  the  land  agitation,  and  the 
needy  classes  because  they  have  nothing  to  lose,  and  see 
before  them  a  magnificent  prize — the  revenues  of  Ireland. 
Under  Home  Rule  there  will  be  ten  years  of  chaos  and 
terrorism,  and  then  decent  men  will  gradually  come  to 
the  front  again. 

"  There  is  enormous  distress  here,  but  it  does  not 
*  touch  the  farming  class,  but  only  the  laborers  and  the 
servants.  The  laborers  are  very  badly  off.  Several 
hundred  used  to  find  employment  on  this  one  estate. 
The  landlords  to-morrow,  with  ;;{^20o  or  ^300,  could  get 
hundreds  of  laborers  to  tear  the  roofs  off  the  farmers' 
heads." 


94 


IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 


With  Canon  O'Regan  I  had  some  talk  about  the  state 
of  affairs.  "  Suppose  the  Kingstons  cannot  afford  to 
grant  reductions  that  richer  landlords  give,  why  should 
the  people  suffer  ?  That  great  palace  there  was  built  out 
of  the  earnings  of  the  farmers.  Why  should  the  people 
starve  to  enable  Lady  Kingston  to  live  there  ?  Money  was 
squandered  recklessly  in  the  past,  it  is  just  that  the  pres- 
ent should  pay  for  it."  Yet  there  is  something  touching 
in  the  thought  of  that  gentle,  sad-voiced  lady  in  that 
noble  castle,  for  the  last  time  perhaps,  watching  the  pea- 
cocks strutting  on  the  gravel,  or  for  the  last  time  stroll- 
ing through  the  vast  conservatories. 

In  the  village  the  people  speak  with  curious  hatred  of 
the  Kingstons,  for  whom  even  A.  M.  Sullivan  felt  com- 
passion. They  repeat  dreadful  traditions  of  impossible 
cruelties  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  refer  vaguely  to 
a  curse  that  the  estate  shall  never  pass  from  father  to  son 
for  more  than  two  generations,  a  curse  that  at  least  is 
verified  by  the  facts. 

It  seemed  strange  to  carry  these  thoughts  to  a  brilliant 
ball,  and  even  then  they  could  not  be  forgotten,  for  our 
hostess  had  herself  her  own  troubles  with  her  tenants, 
who  had  only  just  consented  to  an  arrangement ;  and 
many  ladies  were  present  who  had  been  reduced  to  gen- 
teel beggary  by  the  failure  of  family  charges  that  were 
expected  to  endure  forever.  As  the  party  broke  up  in 
the  early  morning,  a  report  spread  suddenly  that  a  bailiff 
had  been  shot,  and  a  policeman  wounded  ;  and  as  we 
walked  home  we  passed  a  burning  hay-rick,  surrounded  by 
a  crowd  of  jeering  rowdies,  that  no  one  tried  to  save.  It 
was  said  to  belong  to  a  widow  who  had  brought  back  her 
cows  from  the  place  where  they  had  been  concealed  by 
order  of  the  League.     On  arriving  at  the  castle,  we  found 


IN  MUNSTER.  95 

that  all  the  windows  had  been  smashed  in  the  beautiful 
house  of  an  absentee  neighbor,  and  that  a  successful 
raid  had  been  made  by  the  Kingston  bailiff,  who  had 
driven  sixty-two  of  the  tenants'  cattle  into  the  demesne. 
The  next  day  we  sat  up  half  the  night  in  the  long  billiard- 
room,  with  all  the  arms  that  could  be  mustered,  expecting 
an  attack  to  recover  the  cattle.  *'  The  poor,  deluded 
tenants  !  "  said  a  lady  ;  "  it  is  necessary  to  seize  their  cows 
to  give  them  an  opportunity  to  pay  their  rents  with 
safety."  Such  are  some  of  the  excitements  of  life  on  a 
"  Plan  of  Campaign  "  estate  ;  they  recalled  the  border 
warfare  of  the  days  of  "  Marmion  "  and  the  "  Lady  of  the 
Lake." 

A  few  weeks  later  and  a  great  meeting  of  Galtee 
farmers,  with  blackthorns  in  their  hands,  refused  to  be 
dispersed  by  the  police,  drove  them  to  the  barracks,  and 
left  two  young  men  dying  in  the  streets.  Gladstone 
wrote  the  telegram  :  "  Remember  Mitchelstown  !  "  and 
William  O'Brien,  in  a  fortified  farmer's  house,  entered  by 
a  ladder,  pointed  his  own  moral  of  that  famous  aphorism  : 
"  I  say,  God  bless  you  and  guard  you,  and  more  power  to 
your  strong  arms.  .  .  .  Before  that  watchword  the 
walls  of  Dublin  Castle  and  the  walls  of  Mitchelstown 
Castle  will  go  down  and  crumble  in  the  dust."  ' 

A  few  more  months  and  the  Land  Commissioners 
granted  a  general  reduction  of  twenty-two  per  cent,  on 
the  rents  of  the  Mitchelstown  tenants  under  judicial 
leases  fixed  in  1881  and  1882  ;  and,  on  the  tenants  still 
holding  out,  their  demands  were  finally  acceded  to  ; 
evicted  tenants  were  reinstated,  and  the  proprietors  an- 
nounced their  intention  to  offer  the  estate  for  sale.  This 
is  the  final  consummation,  so  long  delayed,  of  "  the  ruin 
'  September  24,  1887. 


96  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

of  that  noble  house,  the  wreck  of  that  princely  fortune, 
once  the  boast  of  Southern  Ireland."  '  These  landlords 
were  not  rack- renters,  they  were  not  absentees,  they  made 
the  town  of  Mitchelstown  beautiful,  and  their  own  estate 
they  were  perpetually  improving  ;  they  built  almshouses 
and  a  church,  and  a  town-hall,  and  yet  they  are  driven 
from  the  country  with  execrations. 

A  GENTLEMAN  FARMER  IN  COUNTY  CORK. 

A  handsome  sunburnt,  athletic  man  appeared  one  day 
at  luncheon.  The  owner  of  an  estate  of  some  five 
thousand  acres,  he  has  but  few  tenants  and  is  trying  to 
farm  most  of  it  himself.  It  is  a  dairy  district,  and  the 
profits  seem  to  be  reasonably  remunerative.  "  Take,"  he 
said,  "  a  farm  of  twenty  acres.  That  will  support  at  a 
low  valuation  eight  cows  (wet  and  dry,  /.  ^.,  winter  and 
summer)  on  hay  and  grass.  Those  cows  ought  to  pro- 
duce three  firkins  of  butter  each,  three  and  a  half  would 
be  usual.  That  is  worth,  at  50.^.,  icy.  less  than  has  been 
refused  by  some  of  my  tenants  this  year — ^7  \os.  If  you 
allow  a  calf  to  each  cow,  the  farmer  would  make  a  fur- 
ther sum  at  present  prices  of  ;^3  each.  Two  pigs  at 
least  can  be  kept  for  each  cow,  selling  for  30^-.  each,  after 
being  fed  on  buttermilk  and  potatoes.  The  gross  re- 
ceipts would  then  be  ;^io8.  In  addition  to  this  there 
would  be  potatoes  grown  for  family  use  and  a  little  oats 
for  straw  to  make  manure,  which  I  don't  charge  for. 
The  rent  of  the  farm  would  probably  be,  with  the  pres- 
ent reduction,  ;^2o,  a  pound  an  acre.  The  taxes  would 
be  half  the  rates  at  \s.  in  the  pound,  or  ^2.  So  the  net 
income  of  the  farmer  would  be  about  ;^ 85  or  ^86. 

"  The  farmers    spend  too    much  money  on  funerals, 

'  A.  M.  Sullivan  :    "  New  Ireland,"  Chap.  XII. 


IN  MUNSTEK.  97 

fairs,  meetings,  drink,  and  shop  goods.  Much  harm  is 
also  caused  by  their  peculiar  marriage  customs.  If  my 
son  were  to  marry  a  daughter  of  yours,  for  instance,  I 
should  have  to  give  my  son  a  farm,  twenty  acres  and  ten 
cows,  perhaps,  and  you  would  give  with  your  daughter 
an  equivalent  in-  money — ;^2oo.  But  that  money,  in- 
stead of  going  into  the  bride's  pocket  or  her  husband's, 
goes  to  me  as  the  father-in-law.  The  father  gets  the  mar- 
riage portion  of  the  girl.  In  seven  years  hence,  when 
the  son  is  probably  the  father  of  seven  children,  they  are 
all  dependent  on  the  farm  and  ten  cows,  and  the  rent  has 
to  be  met  all  the  same.  The  result  is  too  often  bank- 
ruptcy without  any  fault  on  the  part  of  the  landlord. 

"  Then  the  priest  tax  is  heavy.  It  is  not  unusual  to 
hear  the  farmer  saying  after  a  priest  has  left  the  parish  ; 
*  He  was  a  devil  of  a  fellow,  and  knocked  the  heart  out 
of  us.'  They  get  about  ten  per  cent,  of  the  girl's  mar- 
riage portion,  and  are  paid  large  fees  at  christenings  and 
funerals.  *  That  was  a  great  funeral,'  said  a  farmer  to 
me  one  day,  '  four  priests  at  £,2,  a  head.'  All  the  ten- 
ants on  an  estate  are  apt  to  be  related  to  one  another. 
The  priests  encourage  their  parishioners  to  marry  among 
themselves,  for  they  get  a  percentage  on  both  fortunes. 

''  I  have  given  reductions  in  the  last  three  years,  even 
on  judicial  rents,  whenever  it  seemed  necessary.  There 
is  no  mistake  about  it,  some  of  the  judicial  rents  are  too 
high.  I  have  seen  the  rents  upheld  on  farms  where  the 
tenant  was  thriving  with  hard  labor  on  poor  land,  and 
reduced  on  farms  where  the  tenant  was  improvident  on 
better  land.  Some  of  the  land  was  valued  in  June  and 
some  in  December,  but  it  is  impossible  to  judge  the  value 
of  land  in  winter.  That  was  the  case  with  my  property. 
Land  should  be  valued  in  summer  when  the  crops  arp 


98  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

growing.  The  result  has  been  great  inequality  in  the 
fairness  of  judicial  rents. 

"  Eviction,  of  course,  is  sometimes  necessary.  I  ex- 
plain my  reasons  as  clearly  as  possible  to  my  tenants. 
'  If  I  let  this  man  have  his  land  for  nothing,  I  tell  them, 
'  I  can't  make  you  pay.'  The  dangerous  man  to  evict  is 
the  man  who  has  nothing  ;  the  man  who  has  money  does 
not  care  to  risk  his  neck.  It  is  bad  policy  to  turn  out 
the  poor. 

'*  The  national  movement  is  led  by  a  body  of  very 
clever  men,  but  they  have  countenanced  outrages  be- 
cause their  object  is  to  make  things  so  uncomfortable  for 
us  that  we  must  either  join  in  or  be  crushed.  When  the 
tenants  are  made  proprietors,  the  owners  of  the  large  es- 
tates will  have  to  leave  the  country,  but  men  like  myself 
will  remain.  I  am  half  farmer,  half  landlord,  and  suc- 
ceeding, so  I  cannot  be  hurt  much." 

AN    ESTATE    IN    COUNTY    WATERFORD. 

For  miles  in  every  direction  the  land  is  the  Duke's. 
The  beautiful  castle  that  overpeers  the  Blackwater  is  va- 
cant, but  the  evils  of  absenteeism  are  averted  by  a  wise 
and  almost  princely  generosity.  The  railroad  from  Fer- 
moy  to  Lismore  was  built  by  the  Duke,  and  he  gave  to 
the  people  the  long,  graceful  Lismore  bridge. 

With  one  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  estate  I  spent  a 

day  in  driving  over  it.     "  John   D lives  there,"  he 

said.  "  The  rent  is  ^£26  2s.  for  two  small  holdings,  and 
last  Lady-day  his  arrears  were  ;^i78.  We  have  had  a 
decree  against  him  for  twelve  months  past.  He  has  paid 
only  one  year's  rent  in  six  years,  and  that  on  threat  of 
eviction.  I  visited  him  personally  to  induce  him  to  join 
the  landlord  in  having  his  arrears  wiped  off  under  the 


IN  MUNSTER.  99 

Arrears  Act,  and  he  promised,  but  did  not.  A  national- 
ist guardian  said  they  were  anxious  to  have  an  eviction 
on  the  Duke's  property,  and  had  a  League  hut  all  ready 
to  put  up  for  him. 

*'  Here  's  a  farm  that  belonged  to  Michael  Flynn,  who 
paid  about ^{^340  for  352  acres  in  two  farms.  He  paid 
punctually  and  made  money,  dying  thirteen  or  fourteen 
years  ago.  His  grandson  inherited  it  and  a  good  sum  of 
money  ;  drank,  gambled,  soon  ran  up  ^600  arrears,  and 
sold  off  his  stock.  As  he  was  impoverishing  the  prop- 
erty, doing  no  good  to  any  one,  the  Duke  evicted  him, 
let  the  arrears  go,  and  gave  him  about^ioo  to  emigrate. 
For  three  years  the  farm  was  then  worked  from  the 
ofifice.  Expensive  improvements  were  made,  laborers' 
cottages  were  built  and  fences.  A  steward  was  hired 
to  work  it.  One  year  the  old  rent  above  expenses  was 
cleared  ;  the  next  year  ;!^io2  was  carried  forward,  and 
the  third  year  there  was  no  balance.  Three  years  ago  a 
woman  took  it  in  excellent  condition  for  ^300.  In  three 
months  she  married  Gallagher,  and  died  with  her  first 
child.  The  first  half-year's  rent  she  paid,  and  he  paid 
the  second.  He  was  given  twenty  per  cent,  reduction. 
Then  he  put  up  his  stock  at  auction  to  avoid  paying  the 
third  half-year's  rent  when  it  was  long  due.  We  had  had 
a  judgment  against  him  for  a  long  time,  and  distrained 
the  morning  of  the  auction.  He  paid  then  out  of  de- 
posit receipts  amounting  to  over  twice  the  rent,  and  the 
same  day  auctioned  off  all  the  stock,  and  has  bought 
none  since.  The  place  is  now  ruined.  The  laborers' 
cottages  have  the  windows  broken  and  the  doors  off  their 
hinges.  The  fences  are  down ;  he  has  ploughed  up 
three  fields  without  sowing  any  seed  in  them.  He  is  a 
tough  customer." 


lOO  IN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

I  spoke  to  a  laborer  in  one  of  the  fields. 

"  The  place  is  in  a  worse  state  now,"  he  said,  "  than 
when  young  Flynn  left  it." 

"  On  the  Duke's  property,"  continued  my  companion, 
"the  buildings  and  drainage  are  fully  half  paid  for  by  the 
landlord.  There  has  not,  however,  been  much  reclama- 
tion of  land  in  Tipperary  and  the  south — none  worth 
speaking  of  since  the  famine." 

We  passed  a  Land  League  hut  thirty  feet  by  fourteen, 
with  two  rooms  and  one  window,  built  of  corrugated  iron 
sheathing  lined  partly  with  wood.     Here  lives  vigorous, 

voluble,  aged  Mrs.  M and    her  decrepit   husband. 

*'  I  had  those  315  acres,"  she  said.  "  The  valuation  was 
^212  \os.  I  sunk  ^1,400  my  father  left  me  in  the  farm, 
and  was  evicted  for;^5oo,  though  there  was  not  a  year's 
rent  due.  Six  illegitimate  daughters  own  it,  and  evicted 
me  on  July  ist,  when  there  were  a  hundred  acres  of  corn 
on  it. 

"  I  have  nine  children,  one  in  Scotland,  one  in  France, 
three  in  America.  They  support  me,  for  I  can't  do  any 
thing  for  myself. 

"  We  stay  here  near  the  farm  in  the  hope  of  getting  it 
again,  and  we  shall  stay  here  till  we  do.  One  of  my  sons 
will  buy  it  for  us  at  a  fair  valuation. 

"  The  Duke's  agent  is  our  best  friend  and  has  helped 
us." 

I  rejoined  my  kind  host  and  companion,  who,  as  we 
drove  on,  spoke  frankly  from  his  practical  experience  of 
many  years. 

"  There  's  a  farm  on  the  estate  that  has  a  characteristic 
history.  It  was  let  to  the  widow  Fenton  for  ^13  a  year. 
The  rent  was  reduced  to  ;^it  \os.  ;  and  the  valuation 
was  ^11.     She  sold  her  tenant-right  to  Willoughby  of 


IN  MUNSTER.  lOI 

VVicklow  for  £  125.  The  interest  on  this  sum  practically 
raised  the  new  tenant's  rent  to  ^16  10^.  The  neighbors 
threatened  him,  and  he  forfeited  his  instalment  of  the 
purchase  money  and  went  away.  The  farm  was  put  up 
again  and  was  bought  by  Mrs.  Brien,  a  widow,  for  ^i  10. 
She  lived  there  for  a  while,  but  was  threatened  ;  and  af- 
ter being  annoyed  persistently  by  ghosts,  she  sold  it  to  a 
neighbor  for  ^95.  There  were  other  changes,  but  it 
finally  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  neighbor,  who  probably 
had  had  his  eye  on  it  all  along.  Every  farm  could  be 
sold,  if  free  sale  were  really  allowed  by  the  people  them- 
selves ;  but  Parnell  makes  a  great  pomt  of  boycotting 
free  sale,  ^i i  an  acre  could  be  got  for  almost  any  farm 
after  the  passing  of  the  Act  of  1881. 

"As  to  land  purchase,  I  think  things  will  come  to  such 
a  pass  between  landlords  and  tenants  that  if  the  land- 
lords can  get  passably  fair  terms,  or  even  any  terms  not 
amounting  to  absolute  confiscation,  it  may  be  for  their 
benefit ;  but  even  then  it  may  not  be  for  the  good  of  the 
country.  The  loss  of  the  landlord's  expenditure  may  be 
a  serious  blow.  In  congested  districts  such  a  transfer  of 
property  would  only  perpetuate  poverty. 

"  The  Nationalists  have  set  themselves  to  bring  about 
the  extermination  of  the  landlords  and  the  sale  of  the 
land  for  its  prairie  value  ;  that  is,  on  confiscation  terms. 
With  this  view  they  hindered  the  success-  of  Lord  Ash- 
bourne's Act  ;  otherwise  many  would  have  purchased 
who  would  have  been  worthy  proprietors.  The  induce- 
ments were  great,  for  by  paying  twenty  or  thirty  per  cent, 
less  than  his  present  rent,  a  man  could  own  the  land  in 
forty-nine  years.  There  has,  however,  been  dangled  be- 
fore the  farmers  the  notion  that  in  time  they  will  get  the 
land  for  nothing.     Now  no  good  can  be  done  by  making 


102  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

an  insolvent  tenant  a  proprietor  against  his  will.  A  bad 
or  thriftless  tenant  is  apt  to  make  a  bad  or  thriftless 
owner.  The  ownership  of  land  should  be  the  reward  of 
a  man's  own  industry.  Land  purchase  is  unquestionably 
no  remedy  for  the  distressed  districts  and  a  very  doubt- 
ful benefit  for  the  others.  A  large  addition  to  the  num- 
ber of  proprietors  would  certainly  be  a  great  advantage, 
but  it  ought  not  to  be  indiscriminate. 

"  It  is  rather  a  strong  argument  against  Home  Rule,  or 
even  any  extension  of  local  self-government,  that  the 
Nationalists  don't  use  well  half  the  time  what  power  they 
have. 

"  The Union  is  run  by  the   Nationalists,  and  is 

not  very  efficient.  One  division  has  mortgaged  itself  as 
far  as  it  can  for  erecting  laborers'  cottages,  and  the  object 
in  most  cases  is  merely  to  spite  the  landlord  or  to  annoy 
a  farmer  who  is  not  a  member  of  the  League.  One  of 
the  last  votes,  overruled  by  the  Local  Government  Board, 
was  to  put  three  cottages,  taking  up  an  acre  and  a  half, 
on  the  plot  of  land  belonging  to  the  bailiff,  who  has  only 
four  acres  altogether,  and  those  within  the  town  limits, 
though  the  object  of  the  act  was  to  prevent  the  influx  of 
laborers  into  the  towns. 

"  The  Duke  always  used  to  give  seventy-five  per  cent, 
of  the  cost  of  building  laborers'  cottages,  though  the  rule 
was  generally  here  to  contribute  only  half  towards  other 
improvements.  The  farmers  could  hardly  be  induced 
to  put  up  cottages  or  any  thing  they  did  not  need  for 
themselves. 

"  The  Unions  also  get  into  debt  to  the  banks,  because 
they  insist  on  keeping  the  rates  too  low  to  meet  their 
liabilities.  They  say  the  people  cannot  pay  the  neces- 
sary rates  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  if  you  incur  a  debt 


IN  MUNSTER.  IO3 

you  should  pay  it.  They  are  also  very  lax  in  the  matter 
of  out-door  relief.  They  say  :  *  Oh,  he  's  very  poor,  and 
if  he  comes  into  the  house  it  will  cost  more  than  to  give 
him  a  small  sum  and  keep  him  out.'  The  fact  is,  that 
coming  into  the  house  acts  as  a  test  of  a  man's  poverty  ; 
no  one  would  object  to  taking  public  money  and  living 
as  he  is  accustomed  to  live.  The  pittances,  too,  are  often 
so  small  as  not  to  keep  a  worthy  but  proud  person  from 
starvation. 

"  I  should,  however,  favor  a  very  liberal  scheme  of 
local  self-government.  It  is  a  substantial  grievance  that 
we  cannot  establish  railroads  without  the  expense  of  a 
journey  to  London  and  a  hearing  before  a  parliamentary 
committee,  though  the  Nationalists  make  no  outcry 
about  this.  The  Board  of  Trade  can  give,  temporary 
orders,  under  a  recent  act  for  the  establishment  of  tram- 
ways, etc.  This  power  should  be  enlarged  to  cover 
railroads. 

"  The  grand-jury  system  should  be  made  representa- 
tive. 

"  The  preservation  of  the  Union  is,  however,  essential 
to  the  prosperity  of  England  and  Ireland  ;  and  it  is 
essential  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union  that  the  im- 
perial government  should  have  the  appointment  and 
control  of  the  magistrates,  the  judges,  and  the  police  ;  in 
a  word,  of  the  executive  of  the  country.  The  brutality 
of  the  people  is  greater  than  that  of  any  other  civilized 
people,  for  here  only  is  public  sympathy  given  to  crimi- 
nals. On  the  Sunday  morning  here,  when  the  news 
came  that  Carey  had  given  information  about  the  Phoenix 
Park  murderers,  each  man's  face  was  as  black  as  a 
thunder-cloud,  as  though  a  great  public  calamity  had 
happened  ;    and  when  it  was  moved  in  the   Board  of 


104  ^^  CASTLE  AND    CABIJST. 

Guardians  to  adjourn  out  of  sympathy  with  the  Duke's 

bereavement,  Mr. ,  a  Nationalist,  spoke  against  it, 

saying  that  the  Duke  had  not  shownany  sympathy  for 
him  when  he  was  arrested  as  a  suspect,  and  he  did  not 
see  why  he  should  show  any  sympathy  for  the  Duke  for 
the  murder  of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish. 

"  My  belief  is  so  strong  in  the  tenacity  and  back-bone 
of  the  North  that  I  am  convinced  of  their  power,  in  the 
event  of  Home  Rule,  to  hold  their  own,  if  not  to  conquer 
the  rest  of  the  island." 

"  I  can  see  nothing  that  can  come  from  Home  Rule," 
interrupted  a  friend,  "  but  utter  fiscal  smash  and  a  row. 
Behind  the  farmers  are  a  vast  army  of  laborers  and  loaf- 
ers, who  outnumber  the  farmers,  and  the  probability  is 
that  they  will  agitate  against  the  farmers  when  the  latter 
become  proprietors,  as  the  farmers  have  done  against 
their  landlords,  for  land  which  they  will  be  very  loath  to 
give  them." 

"  On  this  estate  for  the  present,"  continued  the  other, 
"  all  is  quiet.  There  has  been  no  combination  against 
rent,  but  there  is  great  carelessness  and  indifference  as 
to  whether  they  pay  or  not,  and  an  absence  of  the  exer- 
tion to  work  they  made  in  former  years.     Within  a  year, 

however,  the  agent  met  X.  Y.,  of  B ,  near  the  bank. 

*  I  have  n't  been  to  the  office,'  he  said,  '  because  they  are 
dogging  me  to  see  if  I  do  go  ;  but  I  have  paid  the  rent 
to to  pay  you.'  " 

Ten  or  twelve  fields  I  passed  of  fair  land,  but  yellow 
with  weeds.  "  Premiums  were  offered,"  I  was  told,  on 
making  some  comment,  "  for  autumn  cleaning  of  the 
fields  ;  but  only  two  or  three  farmers  could  be  induced 
to  do  so  ;  though  the  horses  are  idle  in  the  autumn,  and 
though  in  spring  there  is  no  time  for  cleaning  before  the 


IN  MUNSTER,  lOj 

early  crops  are  planted.  It  is  also  impossible  to  make 
the  farmers  get  their  crops  in  early  enough.  When  it  's 
fair,  they  think  it  will  stay  fair  forever  ;  and  when  it 
rains,  they  think  the  rain  will  never  stop." 

A     WATERFORD     FARMER. 

The  farm-house  was  a  comfortable  two-story  building, 
and  the  dining-room  in  which  we  sat  was  neat  and  well 
furnished.  The  farmer  spoke  slowly  and  impressively 
between  long  puffs  at  his  short  pipe.  "  I  own  a  hundred 
and  four  acres,"  he  said.  "  The  poor-law  valuation  is 
j£,\2(>,  and  the  rent  is ^132,  less  twenty-five  per  cent. 

"  Twenty-four  acres  are  in  oats,  six  in  turnips,  four  or 
five  in  potatoes,  and  the  rest  chiefly  grass.  The  oats  are 
very  light  this  year,  and  so  short  that  they  are  hard  to 
cut  with  a  machine.  The  turnips  are  a  total  failure  ;  the 
potatoes  very  bad  ;  the  mangels  not  half  a  crop  ;  and 
the  hay  rather  over  half.  I  keep  sixteen  or  seventeen 
dairy  cows,  three  horses,  and  occasionally  sheep. 

"  I  used  to  buy  cattle  and  exchange  them  after  feed- 
ing, but  cannot  this  year.  Sheep  used  to  pay  fairly,  but 
I  cannot  venture  on  them  this  year  ;  the  grass  is  so  short, 
and  hand-feeding  so  expensive.  I  used  to  make  a  good 
profit  on  calves  in  the  spring,  but  cannot  this  year  on  ac- 
count of  the  poor  crops  of  turnips  and  oats.  I  send  my 
milk  to  the  creamery  at  Tallow,  getting  back  the  butter- 
milk, and  payment  according  to  the  prices  in  the  English 
market.  Last  year  I  made  about  jQ^  a  cow  for  the  but- 
ter, gross  receipts.  Now  there  seems  to  be  no  feeding 
quality  in  the  grass,  and  I  don't  see  how  to  carry  my 
cows  through  the  winter. 

"  I  keep  careful  accounts  of  income  and  expenses.  I 
have  two  servants  whom  I  pay  ^\o  in  cash  and  board. 


I06  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

I  work  with  three  hands  generally.  By  the  year  I  pay  a 
laborer  ;^i3  and  perquisites,  coals,  potatoes,  etc.,  and 
board.  Extra  labor  during  harvest,  etc.,  probably  comes 
to  jQ\^  more.  Before  the  last  two  years,  1  used  to  spend  a 
good  deal  of  mon ey  in  fencing,  ditching,  and  other  improve- 
ments. This  year  I  put  out  about  ;^  2  an  acre  of  potatoes 
and  turnips  for  artificial  manure.  Seed  corn  we  usually 
grow  ourselves,  but  other  seed  costs  me  ^,^5  a  year,  or 
about  10^.  an  acre.  The  county  cess  and  poor-rates 
come  to  about  ^15  a  year,  and  the  priest  tax  is  some 
;^5  or  ^6.  I  have  five  children,  and  I  and  my  wife  live 
very  economically.  I  come  straight  home  from  fairs, 
and  am  very  slow  in  changing  a  pound.  If  the  times 
were  good,  people  could  make  a  living  as  they  used  to  ; 
but  this  year  I  am  sure  I  shall  lose  something  very  large. 
Fifty  per  cent,  reduction  would  not  be  sufficient  to  carry 
me  through.  Twenty  per  cent,  is  the  average  given  here. 
The  Duke  is  also  very  good  in  allowing  for  improvements 
and  for  losses  of  cattle.  I  should  like  to  live  off  the 
land  as  an  industrious  working  man  wishing  to  improve 
his  farm.  I  don't  understand  Home  Rule  or  Land  Pur- 
chase well  enough  to  give  an  opinion,  but  I  should  think 
that  if  they  came  about  we  would  be  in  a  better  position 
for  improving  our  land.  What  is  ruining  the  country 
now  is  the  absence  of  capital." 

TIPPERARY    FARMERS. 

A  farmer,  who  is  to  some  degree  employed  by  a  land- 
lord, but  who  seemed  more  than  usually  honest  and  ca- 
pable, I  beguiled  one  morning  into  saying  what  he 
thought  about  peasant  proprietorship.  The  amount  of 
land  needed  to  support  a  family  in  comfort  seemed  an 
inquiry  worth  making. 


IN  MUNSTER.  \Q'J 

"You  need,"  he  said,  "  fifty  or  sixty  acres  about  here 
to  get  a  comfortable  living  out  of  the  land,  about  a  hun- 
dred English  acres  ;  but  even  with  that  one  would  be 
worse  off  without  capital  than  with  capital  and  less  land. 
Ten  pounds  an  acre  is  needed  for  good  farming,  or  at 
least  ^5. 

"  The  opinions  of  the  neighboring  farmers  I  know 
well.  What  they  want  is  to  get  their  land  cheap,  if  pos- 
sible for  next  to  nothing.  They  don't  want  any  reason- 
able purchase  scheme,  for,  as  a  tenant  farmer  told  me, 
whom  I  urged  to  buy  under  Lord  Ashbourne's  Act,  as  he 
had  plenty  of  money — '  I  would  have  been  delighted  to 
buy  the  place  at  higher  terms  twenty  years  ago,  but  now 
we  hope  to  get  it  for  much  less  by  waiting.  Besides,  it 
would  be  like  paying  the  rates — we  would  have  to  pay; 
and  if  we  got  behind,  the   government  would  make  no 

allowance,  as  Mr.  would.'     Yes,  they  would  always 

prefer  a  good  landlord  to  the  government  for  their  cred- 
itor. The  real  trouble  in  the  past  has  been  that  so  many 
landlords  were  not  accessible. 

"  In  a  few  months  after  peasant  proprietorship  has 
become  established,  I  am  afraid  the  farmers  will  be 
shooting  each  other,  and  in  six  months  they  will  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  Jews.  In  the  struggle  for  land  they 
would  buy  from  one  another  at  enormous  prices,  and 
would  borrow  the  money  at  very  high  rates.  Of  late 
years  there  has  been  more  shooting  of  tenant  farmers 
than  of  landlords.  If  they  want  a  piece  of  land  and 
cannot  get  it,  they  will  coerce  the  owner  to  sell  at  their 
own  terms,  by  force  if  necessary.  Despotism,  tempered 
by  assassination,  will  be  the  result  in  no  little  time  of 
peasant  proprietorship." 

Another  farmer,  an  old  man  of  Scotch  birth,  was  talk- 


108  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

ing  one  evening  to  me  and  a  journalist.  "  There  were 
two  farms  held  by  two  brothers,"  the  journalist  was  say- 
ing, "  on  Lord  Bantry's  property,  at  C ,  on  the  shores 

of  Bantry  Bay,  a  wild,  mountainous  region.  Their  name 
was  Harrington,  or  Sullivan,  I  forget  which.  The  rental 
was  originally  about  £,2-.  One  brother  improved  and 
spent  a  lot  of  money  in  fencing  and  draining,  and  his 
rent  was  raised  gradually  to  £,AtO.  The  other  brother 
made  no  improvements  ;  and  when  asked  a  short  time 
ago  why  he  did  not  follow  his  brother's  example,  *  Shure, 
I  shall  be  fined  if  I  improve,'  said  he.  '  Pat  pays  ^40, 
but  I  am  still  paying  only  ;j^27.'  " 

"  It  was  much  the  same  thing  in  Scotland,"  interrupted 
the  farmer.  "  I  have  seen  the  farmers  there  slowly  work- 
ing up  the  side  of  a  mountain.  So  soon  as  one  bit  was 
cultivated,  the  rent  would  be  raised,  until  they  were 
driven  up  to  the  very  top. 

"  The  Purchase  Acts  are  much  talked  of,  but  to  my 
knowledge  tenants  have  been  forced  to  purchase  at  ex- 
orbitant prices,  just  as  they  used  to  be  forced  to  take 
leases.  On  the  Marquis  of  Waterford's  property,  near 
Carrick  on  Suir,  in  this  county,  the  tenants  have  been 
forced  to  buy  at  twenty  years'  purchase.  Most  of  them 
were  in  arrears  and  were  writted,  and  then,  three  months 
ago,  they  were  given  the  alternative  of  purchasing.  What 
have  those  men  to  fall  back  on  ?  The  average  rent  was 
2,0s.  an  acre,  but  I  don't  believe  much  of  the  land  was 
worth  \os.  The  rest  of  the  tenants  have  joined  the  Plan 
of  Campaign  ;  and  perhaps  the  others  may  be  able  to 
break  their  agreements. 

**  Free-trade  in  breadstuffs  is  what  has  ruined  the 
country. 

"  Cattle  have  gone  down   fifty  per  cent.     What  is  the 


JN  MUNSTER.  IO9 

good  of  landlords  offering  reductions  of  ten  or  twenty 
per  cent.  ?  The  country  is  all  burnt  up  this  year,  and 
what  are  we  to  do  ? " 

One  afternoon,  while  driving,  I  stopped  and  entered 
the  tiny  house,  or  rather  hut,  of  a  farmer  near  Cahir. 
He  told  me  he  had  eleven  acres  ;  one  acre  and  a  half  in 
potatoes,  another  acre  and  a  half  in  oats,  three  in  hay, 
and  he  keeps  two  cows.  He  has  made  no  profit  on  milk 
this  year,  because  of  the  drought.  Oats  are  not  bad,  but 
the  price  is  very  low.  The  rent  is  ^11  18^.,  and  was 
settled  by  agreement  out  of  court  some  five  years  ago, 
and  no  reduction  has  been  made  since  then.  "  We  have 
neglected  the  shopkeepers  to  pay  our  rent.  We  have 
five  children,"  said  he  ;  and  his  wife  added,  from  a  dingy 
corner  :  "  My  husband  lost  four  years  out  of  his  health, 
and  I  had  to  sell  the  horse  at  Clonmel  fair  for  ^^20,  and 
we  have  gone  without  a  horse  ever  since." 

By  the  roadside  one  day  I  noticed  a  little  wooden  box 
of  a  house,  like  a  toy  house.  It  was  one  of  the  laborers' 
cottages,  built  under  the  recent  act.  There  were  two 
rooms  below,  and  a  trap-door  leading  to  a  garret  by  a 
ladder.  The  laborer's  wife  was  in.  She  had  her  seven 
young  children  with  her,  and  said  her  husband  got  usu- 
ally one  shilling  a  day,  sometimes  as  little  as  four  shil- 
lings a  week,  and  sometimes  as  much  as  eight  shillings. 

When  I  asked  the  car-driver  about  laborers'  wages,  he 
said  :  "  Ordinary  laborers  get  usually  6s.  or  %s.  a  week  ; 
and  last  year,  for  the  two  weeks'  season  of  potato  digging 
they  got  2S.  Gd.  a  day.  A  ploughman  gets  from  ^12  to 
£-i.Z^  year," 

A    TIPPERARY    LAND    AGENT. 

"  The  Plan  of  Campaign,"  he  said,  "  is  a  widespread 
scheme  to  ruin  the  landlords  as  a  class.     In  the  case  of  a 


no  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

good  but  weak  landlord,  or  one  who  is  encumbered,  or 
averse  to  a  row,  the  leaders  have  no  mercy  on  him. 
Even  at  this  late  day  the  landlords  and  tenants  would 
come  to  terms  if  they  were  allowed  to  fight  the  question 
out  without  the  interference  of  third  parties  ;  but,  as 
a  rule,  pressure  is  brought  to  bear  by  the  tenant  organi- 
zations on  the  tenants,  or  in  special  cases  on  the  land- 
lord by  a  landlord  association,  as  by  the  Cork  Defence 
Union  at  Youghal.  Landlord  and  tenant  are  like  two 
boys  fighting,  both  wanting  to  run  away  but  neither 
daring  to.  Whenever  the  tenants  show  a  disposition  to 
give  way,  a  big  meeting  is  called,  and  swells  come  from 
Dublin  to  start  the  excitement  again.  A  few  days  ago 
Lady  Kingston  made  some  seizures,  and  a  few  tenants 
paid  their  rent.  Instantly  a  big  meeting  was  held,  and 
down  came  William  O'Brien  by  express.  Condon,  M.  P., 
is  kept  there  all  the  time,  watching  the  estate  as  a  cat 
does  a  mouse. 

"  There  is  great  intimidation  practised  on  any  one  who 
is  lukewarm  in  joining  the  League.  A  popular  form  of 
punishment  is  for  the  Union  to  put  a  laborer's  cottage 

on    a    man's   farm.      On  property   cottages   were 

erected  on  the  holdings  of  many  tenants  for  which  there 
was  no  other  possible  reason.  As  a  rule  the  larger 
farmers  should  be  selected  ;  here  they  picked  out  only 
small  farmers. 

"  I  have  had  a  few  cases,  but  not  many,  of  payment  in 
secret.  The  tenants  go  much  together,  and  are  loath  to 
act  independently.  One  tenant,  after  paying  me,  came 
back  and  asked  me,  when  the  ejectment  cases  came  on 
in  court,  to  have  his  name  called  with  the  rest,  and  so  I 
did. 

"  There  is  a  property  belonging  to  an  estate  in  chan- 


IN  MUNSTER.  Ill 

eery  of  which  I  have  charge.  A  tenant  was  paying  ;^3oo 
a  year  for  a  farm  there  on  which  he  had  nothing  but  a 
herd's  hut,  as  he  Hved  on  another  farm  forty  miles  off. 
I  evicted  him  for  non-payment  of  rent,  and  there  was  no 
sympathy  for  him,  as  he  was  very  litigious  ;  but  the  farm 
is  boycotted  to  this  day,  and  the  grass  withering  on  it. 
I  made  two  attempts  to  sell  it  at  auction,  and  two  to  sell 
at  private  sale.  No  one  will  bid,  though  hay  is  scarce. 
One  or  two  offers  were  made  privately,  but  withdrawn. 
We  have  lost  over  ;^8oo  by  this  transaction,  and  without 
the  slightest  fault  on  our  part. 

"  As  a  large  landowner  in  Somersetshire  said  to  me,  *  I 
suppose,  if  I  were  to  call  my  tenants  together,  and  ask 
them  if  it  was  their  wish  I  should  continue  to  own  the 
land,  they  would  vote  no,  and  would  vote  to  divide  it 
among  themselves.'  That  would  be  the  condition  of  the 
Irish  landlords  before  a  Home-Rule  Parliament.  Life 
and  property  would  be  insecure  under  Home  Rule.  They 
might  succeed  here  in  time,  but  there  would  be  chaos 
meanwhile.  The  land  question  is  blocking  the  way  of 
Home  Rule. 

"  Land  purchase  on  any  large  scale  is  impossible  with- 
out an  imperial  guaranty.  The  grand  jury,  of  which  I 
am  a  member,  recently  voted  to  guarantee  the  interest, 
at  four  per  cent.,  on  a  few  thousand  pounds  to  build  a 
light  railroad,  the  government  making  some  contribution. 
We  cannot  raise  a  single  pound  now,  and  many  of  the 
counties  are  probably  in  a  similar  fix.  Much  less  would 
any  land  bonds  be  taken  without  an  imperial  guaranty. 

"  Another  difficulty  in  the  working  of  a  local  board  to 
purchase  through  is  the  want  of  courage  and  public 
support  to  enable  it  to  evict,  if  necessary,  in  order  to 
secure  payment. 


112  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

"  The  various  Land  Acts  would  have  succeeded  in 
pacifying  the  farmers,  if  they  had  been  given  an  honest 
trial,  but  that  the  League  prevented.  No  evictions  would 
have  happened  if  the  League  had  allowed  free  sale  of  the 
tenant  right.  Not  sticking  to  that  one  clause  of  free  sale 
has  been  the  end  of  every  thing.  The  League  wants  to 
keep  up  evictions.  Meanwhile,  the  land  is  occupied  by 
vagabonds,  who  are  exhausting  it,  as  well  as  paying  no 
rent. 

"  Finally,  I  am  in  favor  of  greater  local  self-govern- 
ment. The  associated  cess  payers  on  the  grand  jury 
should  be  made  elective.  Otherwise  the  grand-jury  sys- 
tem is  a  great  anomaly." 

DRIVING    WITH    A    MAGISTRATE    IN    TIPPERARY. 

Early  in  the  morning  the  magistrate  called  for  me  to 
drive  with  him  sixteen  Irish  miles  to  petty  sessions  at 
Mullamahone.  He  himself  is  the  ideal  of  a  country 
magistrate — a  bluff,  hearty,  earnest,  sensible  gentleman,  of 
an  old  Norman  family  that  has  lived  in  Ireland  for  over 
five  hundred  years  ;  intensely  honorable,  hating  nothing 
more  than  deceit  or  falsehood. 

A  broad  valley  stretched  on  each  side  of  the  road,  and 
in  the  distance  towered  the  gloomy  masses  of  Slieve- 
naman.  The  farms  we  passed  seemed  but  poorly  cul- 
tivated, but  here  and  there  a  steam  reaping-machine 
puffing  by  the  roadside  showed  that  modern  methods 
were  being  slowly  introduced.  These  machines  are  gen- 
erally used  in  Tipperary,  and  are  hired  out  by  the  richer 
farmers  to  their  neighbors  at  icy.  a  day. 

The  country  was  full  of  reminiscences  to  my  compan- 
ion. "We  drove  over  a  hundred  head  of  cattle  once 
from  that  field  into  Clonmel."      "In  that  field,  three  or 


IN  MUNSTER.  II3 

four  years  ago,  we  seized  twenty  milch  cows."  And  he 
explained  :  "  It  used  to  be  a  part  of  our  duty  to  be  pres- 
ent, when  required,  at  distraints  for  rent,  but  is  so  no 
longer." 

Soon  we  were  changing  horses  in  the  decayed  little 
town  of  Fethard,  where,  in  one  short  street,  I  counted 
fifteen  ruined  cottages. 

Passing  out  of  Fethard,  we  saw  a  large,  apparently  de- 
serted farm.  "  One  Meagher  used  to  live  there  as  tenant 
of  some  four  hundred  acres.  Six  years  ago  he  was 
evicted  with  great  violence.  A  number  of  neighbors 
joined  him  in  resisting  the  officers,  and  eighteen  out  of 
twenty-three  were  convicted.  For  some  time  the  farm 
lay  vacant,  then  a  stranger  took  it  who  was  boycotted  so 
severely  that  he  had  to  go,  and  now  it  is  leased  for  a 
nominal  sum  to  the  Land  Corporation." 

Mullamahone  is  a  poor  little  village  with  two  long 
streets,  famous,  if  at  all,  for  being  the  scene  of  a  rising  in 
1848.  The  court-room  was  in  the  upper  story  of  a 
rickety  barn-like  building.  Three  magistrates  were  on 
the  bench.  The  cases  were  chiefly  liquor  cases  and  un- 
important. Two  men  were  on  trial  for  drunkenness,  and 
an  excuse  was  pleaded  that  startled  the  court  :  that  in 
the  spring  there  had  been  a  terrible  outbreak  of  conta- 
gious fever,  and  so  frightened  were  the  people  that  no  one 
could  be  found  for  a  long  time  to  bury  one  poor  girl  who 
died  of  it.  These  men  volunteered,  after  first  making 
themselves  drunk  from  fear  of  the  infection,  and  then 
left  the  coffin  lying  for  several  hours  at  the  church-door. 
"  Discharged."  Another  case  I  noticed  was  of  malicious 
cutting  of  a  tree  by  a  tenant  with  a  hand-saw.  ''  My 
grandfather  planted  those  trees,"  said  the  tenant,  while 
the  bailiff,  an  old  man,  swore  that  the  trees  were  orna- 


114  ^^  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

mental  ash  trees  along  the  road.  "  Four  shillings  com- 
pensation, loj.  fine,  and  3^.  costs,  or  seven  days,"  was 
the  order  of  the  court. 

As  we  drove  back  :  "  In  South  Tipperary,"  said  he, 
"  intemperance  has  decidedly  decreased.  The  fines  have 
diminished  seventy-five  per  cent,  in  a  few  years.  In 
Clogheen  there  is  usually  but  one  *  drunk '  where  there 
used  to  be  thirty,  and  at  the  last  session  at  Cahir  there 
was  not  one.  This  reform  is  due  to  the  efforts  of  indi- 
vidual priests." 

One  landlord  in  the  neighborhood  I  heard  everywhere 
spoken  of  with  great  enthusiasm,  Lord  Lismore.  "  He  's 
a  man,"  cried  the  driver,  "  who  can  walk  from  one  end  of 
Ireland  to  the  other  without  a  stick."  *'  He  has  made 
enormous  reductions,"  said  the  magistrate,  "  but  the  ten- 
ants are  most  ungrateful,  and  are  not  paying  him  a  cent. 
He  did  every  thing  to  improve  the  horn-stock  and  pigs  in 
the  neighborhood.  Indeed,  the  excellence  of  the  breed 
of  pigs  throughout  the  south  of  Ireland  is  due  to  him." 

"  Four  years  ago,  for  about  eighteen  months,  there  was 
great  disturbance  on  Lord  Lismore's  property  for  some 
eighteen  months,  and  we  had  to  bring  the  cavalry  out  day 
and  night  to  encourage  the  well-affected.  Cogherty's 
house  here  was  set  fire  to  twice,  four  years  ago,  and  two 
other  tenants  of  Lord  Lismore  have  had  their  houses 
fired,  all  good  rent-payers. 

**  Irish  ofiicials  are  accused  of  every  crime,  but  they  do 
their  duty  according  to  their  lights,  usually  according  to 
common-sense. 

"  The  government  is  blamed  for  not  having  tried  to 
settle  the  land  question  sooner  ;  but  what  really  held 
back  the  land  question  was  the  question  of  disestablish- 
ment of  the  Irish  Church,  a  great  anomaly.     Now  matters 


IN  MUNSTER.  II5 

are  come  to  such  a  pass  that  peasant  proprietorship  is 
inevitable.  Gladstone  created  the  dual  ownership  :  that 
is  on  all  sides  held  to  be  impracticable,  and  the  only  way 
to  get  out  of  it  is  to  deprive  one  dual  owner  of  his  prop- 
erty. The  landlord  is  asked  to  go  to  the  wall :  the  gov- 
ernment has  taken  half  his  property,  and  now  is  going  to 
take  the  other  half. 

"  The  landlords  are  reviled  now,  but  they  have  gener- 
ally been  kind  and  even  generous.  Lady  Margaret 
Charteris  spent  ;^3,ooo  in  building  an  aqueduct  for  the 
town  of  Cahir.  Lord  Sligo  did  the  same  at  Westport. 
It  was  a  rule  of  Lord  Sligo's  that  whatever  the  people 
subscribed  towards  a  public  improvement  he  would 
double.  Most  Irish  landlords  always  gave  the  land  for 
chapels  free,  and  sometimes  for  convents.  Railroads 
here  are  very  expensive,  partly  from  the  great  wear  and 
tear  of  the  cattle  traffic,  and  to  them  the  landlords  have 
subscribed  largely  out  of  public  spirit.  Many  thousand 
pounds  have  been  spent  in  this  way  by  my  own  relations, 
and  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  gave  over  ^^100,000  towards 
building  the  Lismore  and  Fermoy  R.  R. 

*'  In  Ireland  the  people  never  combine  voluntarily  to 
make  any  public  improvement  ;  they  are  always  afraid  of 
some  getting  more  good  from  it  than  the  rest. 

"  Old  Lord  Waterpark  had  a  hobby  for  improving  his 
property,  and  sank  an  enormous  amount  of  money  in  it. 
This  is  not  taken  into  account  now,  and  though  the 
father  lived  in  the  most  economical  way  for  years  to  save 
the  property,  his  son  is  now  almost  bankrupt. 

"  Many  cases  even  of  apparently  cruel  rent-raising  are 
probably  not  as  they  seem  to  be.  On  Lord  Sligo's  estate, 
during  the  famine  year,  a  large  farm  was  given  up  in  a 
very  impoverished  condition.     The  rent  had  been  ^'80. 


Il6  IN   CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

He  let  it  to  a  tenant  on  condition  that  he  should  pay  \s. 
the  first  year,  £^^o  the  second  year,  jP^da  the  third  year, 
and  after  that  the  full  rental.  The  parish  priest  brought 
the  tenant  before  the  Bessborough  Commission,  and  re- 
mained in  the  room  while  he  swore  his  rent  had  been 
raised  four  times  in  seven  years. 

'*  All  good  feeling  between  landlord  and  tenant  has 
now  been  swept  away,  and  it  will  never  recover. 

"  The  parish  priest  here  is  a  brother  of  one  tenant  and 
the  uncle  of  another,  and  so  with  most  of  the  clergy  ;  and 
they  are  all  tenants  themselves,  so  you  cannot  expect 
them  to  oppose  the  people  in  this  movement. 

"  The  Irish  are  not  independent  by  nature  :  the  land- 
lords were  the  masters,  and  they  usually  used  to  keep  a 
tenant  going  in  an  irregular,  unbusiness-like  way,  and  he 
in  return  used  to  give  at  least  one  vote  to  his  landlord. 
Then  the  priests  struggled  with  the  landlords  for  the  vote 
and  got  it,  becoming  the  masters  in  their  turn.  Now  the 
priests  have  been  succeeded  by  the  agitators,  who  are  the 
hardest  and  most  exacting  masters  of  all,  and  the  most 
expensive,  but  the  League  dues  are  now  being  objected 
to,  and  the  agitation  would  cease  but  for  American 
money." 

"You  don't  fear  persecution  under  Home  Rule?"  I 
asked.  "  That  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  persecution," 
he  replied.  "We  never  get  justice  in  any  lawsuit  as  it 
is,  and  even  under  the  present  government  we  never  get 
any  appointment  except  by  competitive  examination. 
What  will  become  of  us  at  the  mercy  of  people  so  bigoted 
that  the  law  cannot  be  enforced  against  a  priest,  and  a 
woman  in  this  town  refused  to  sue  the  parish  priest  for 
her  wages — *  If  I  do  that,'  said  she,  '  he  '11  curse  me  and 
I  '11  rot.' 


IN  MUNSTER.  11/ 

"  What  is  needed  is  more  industry.  In  Wexford,  Car- 
low,  and  even  here,  eggs  are  sold  in  large  numbers  to 
eggers  for  the  English  market.  If  a  better  breed  of 
fowls  were  kept,  the  profits  would  be  enormously  in- 
creased. Butter  from  the  Cahir  creamery  sold  for  is. 
2d.  a  pound  in  Manchester  during  May,  instead  of  dd., 
which  is  all  the  farmers  usually  get.  These  creameries 
might  be  indefinitely  increased,  and  profitably  to  all  con- 
cerned, for  we  pay  nearly  seven  per  cent,  interest." 

A    TIPPERARY    LANDLORD. 

For  some  days  my  host  was  one  of  the  most  genial, 
witty,  and  popular  of  Irish  landlords.  He  is  a  learned 
man,  a  student  and  writer  ;  he  has  sat  in  Parliament,  as 
did  his  father  before  him  ;  he  is  a  conscientious  magis- 
trate ;  he  is  perpetually  improving  his  large  property.  His 
house  is  like  the  ideal  English  country-house,  with  a 
broad  lawn  sloping  gradually  towards  the  banks  of  the 
loveliest  of  Irish  rivers.  Pictures  by  old  masters  and 
family  portaits  lean  from  the  walls.  The  library  is 
crammed  with  old  and  rare  books.  His  active,  clever 
wife  teaches  the  tenants'  daughters  to  Avork  embroidery, 
designs  the  patterns,  and  gets  the  work,  when  finished, 
sold.  To  the  younger  children  she  offers  prizes  for 
flowers  and  collections  of  every  sort,  and  her  influence 
for  good  was  proved  by  the  happy  faces  of  the  neatly 
dressed  children  who  gathered  round  the  long  tables  in 
the  garden  at  the  annual  flower  show.  The  shadow  of  im- 
pending fate  rests  lightly  here,  but  it  is  not  absent. 

'*  Shall  we  have  to  leave  our  pleasant  homes  we  love  so 
well — this  house,  this  garden  ?  We  shall  try  to  get  the 
land  near  us  into  our  own  hands  and  farm  it  ourselves. 
Then  we  are  told   our  friends    and    neighbors    will  be 


Il8  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

forced  to  go  away,  and  soon  we  shall  be  left  alone  and 
be  unable  to  live  here  in  peace.  I  am  glad  that  Ave  our- 
selves are  comparatively  young.  For  the  old,  you  have 
no  idea  how  sad  these  changes  are.  My  grandfather  be- 
gan to  build  a  beautiful  house  in  a  small  country  town. 
When  my  father  took  the  property  he  had  little  money 
and  spent  all  he  had  for  years  in  finishing  and  furnishing 
the  house.  The  rest  of  his  life  he  has  passed  on  the 
estate,  devoting  himself  to  improving  the  neighborhood. 
He  built  almshouses,  and  started  an  agricultural  society 
to  encourage  a  knowledge  of  scientific  farming.  When 
this  agitation  began  the  Land  Leaguers  tried  to  make 
trouble  between  him  and  his  tenants  ;  they  called  him 
a  tyrant  and  insulted  him  in  the  town  council.  Now  the 
poor  old  man  is  quite  heart-broken." 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  and  distinguished  of  Irish- 
women was  the  centre  of  a  little  group  of  courtiers  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  flower  show,  speaking  with  charming 
animation.     What  are  they  saying  ? 

"  The  people  about  here  say  I  lost  so  much  by  that 
field,    when  they  mean    'I    laid   out    so  much  on  it.'" 

"  Lord  V ,  when  on  the  Land  Commission,  was  so 

disgusted  by  the  absurd  demands  of  one  farmer  that  he 
cried  out,  '  I  want  to  know  if  you  expect  to  be  compen- 
sated for  the  damage  done  by  Noah's  flood.'"  "Did 
you  hear  Morris'  retort  to  Lady  Aberdeen  when  she 
said,  'I  supposed  you  were  all  Home  Rulers  here.' 
'  There  's  not  one  in  the  room,  except  your  ladyship  and 
maybe  one  or  two  of  the  waiters.'  "  "  My  mother  found 
a  cottage  on  the  place  where  all  the  family  and  the  calf 
lived  in  one  room.  She  built  them  a  second  room,  and 
in  a  few  weeks  found  the  calf  in  the  new  room  and  the 
rest    huddled   together    in   the   other   one   as   before." 


IN  MUNSTER.  II9 

"Home  Rule  is  an  absolute  experiment,  with  an  off 
chance  of  doing  some  good  and  a  great  probability  of 
absolutely  ruining  every  one."  "  Wellington  said  :  '  Peo- 
ple good  at  making  excuses  are  good  for  nothing  else  !  ' 
It  is  so  with  the  Irish.  With  them  it  is  always  the  gov- 
ernment, the  weather,  or  the  soil."  "  The  farmers  openly 
rejoice  that  Providence  has  again  interfered  to  prevent 
them  from  paying  their  rents.  They  are  glad  it  is  a  bad 
year." 

The  last  words  I  heard  were  spoken  by  a  beautiful  and 
distinguished  lady,  a  true  Irishwoman,  of  large  posses- 
sions and  high  position. 

"  Is  it  right,"  said  she,  "that  we  who  have  always  been 
loyal  to  the  government  should  be  handed  over  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  these  men  ?  They  are  Catholics,  and 
no  doubt  many  have  preached  to  them  what  was  said  by 
a  priest  at  Waterford  :  '  The  portion  of  the  landlords  is 
dynamite  in  this  world  and  hell  fire  in  the  next.'  If 
Home  Rule  comes,  we  shall  be  driven  from  our  homes 
like  the  Huguenots  ;  but  we  shall  not  go  to  England.  We 
shall  cherish  till  death  an  unrelenting  hatred  of  England, 
a  country  that  we  once  trusted  and  served,  and  that  sac- 
rificed us." 

The  many  talks  I  had  with  my  kind  host  and  friend 
were  so  interesting  that  it  may  be  well  to  group  them  in 
a  single  statement. 

"  The  Nationalists,"  he  said  one  day,  "  often  base  the 
claims  of  the  tenants  on  their  descent  from  the  origi- 
nal owners  of  the  soil.  There  is  no  such  historical  con- 
tinuity. The  greater  part  of  the  tenants  on  my  estate 
(I  have  about  three  hundred)  are  not  Tipperary  men, 
but  are  descendants  of  families  brought  here  by  ray 
ancestors  from  other  parts  of  Ireland.       Murphy,   for 


I20  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

instance,  is  a  common  name  on  my  estate,  and  the  Mur- 
phys  all  came  from  Wexford.  That  dairymaid  is  a 
Devereux,  a  Norman  and  a  Wexford  family.  The  ten- 
ants represent  only  to  a  limited  extent  the  old  state  of 
affairs.  The  landlord's  title  is  often  far  older  than  theirs. 
What  they  do  represent  is  the  religion  of  the  past.  It 
would  be  quite  exceptional  for  the  tenant  to  be  the  de- 
scendant of  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  land,  and  who 
the  original  inhabitants  were  in  any  barony  or  parish  we 
know  almost  to  a  man. 

*'  This  is  the  not  uncommon,  indeed  is  the  typical, 
history  of  an  Irish  estate,  especially  of  an  estate  in  Tip- 
perary.  About  1780,  a  year  of  great  change  in  the  south 
of  Ireland,  the  land  was  growing  out  of  a  pastoral  into  an 
agricultural  state,  on  account  of  the  high  price  of  wheat, 
A  Tipperary  landlord  had  a  lot  of  grass  land  and  found 
it  would  pay  him  to  break  up  the  pasture.  He  brought 
men  from  a  distance  and  settled  them  on  it.  The  land, 
we  will  say,  paid  \os.  an  acre  as  grazing  land.  A  man 
offered  15.?.,  and  was  accepted.  He  set  to  work,  built  a 
farm-house,  made  fences,  grubbed  up  the  furze-bushes, 
and,  in  rare  cases,  dug  drains.  Twenty  years  later,  during 
the  Peninsular  war,  prices  rose  greatly  and  the  competi- 
tion for  land  was  intense.  A  man  could  now  pay  25^.  as 
easily  as  he  could  pay  10.$-.  in  the  earlier  period.  The 
landlord  in  the  meantime  had  done  nothing,  but  was 
neither  grasping  nor  unkind.  After  a  while  this  farm 
comes  into  the  hands  of  a  man  who  does  n't  want  to 
work  it  for  some  reason,  and  is  anxious  to  get  out  of  it. 
He  feels  he  cannot  go  out  without  any  thing.  He  comes 
now  to  the  landlord  and  says  :  '  Your  Honor,  I  don't 
feel  up  to  the  work,  and  I  would  be  greatly  obliged  to 
your  Honor  if  you  would  let  my  sister's  cousin  take  the 


IN  MUiVS  Vi:/?.  121 

land.'  'AVilling  to  oblige  you,  "Pat,  you  scoundrel,' re- 
plies his  Honor,  '  and  what  will  your  sister's  cousin  pay 
me?'  'Thirty  shillings,'  says  1'at.  The  cousin  comes 
in  and  under  the  rose  gives  Pat  some  money.  With  the 
rising  prices  the  ncAv  tenant  would  be  as  well  off  as  the 
original  tenant  at  loi-.     And  so  on  to  the  famine  time. 

"  In  this  way  '  tenant  right '  sprang  up.  It  implies 
that  the  landlord  made  no  outlay,  and  the  custom  be- 
came gradually  acknowledged  as  a  just  one.  On  certain 
estates  that  sort  of  thing  was  put  down  as  much  as  pos- 
sible, for  the  landlord  could  always  bring  in  a  stranger, 
but  the  people  lived  in  a  comfortable  way  together,  and 
where  there  was  any  relationship  between  the  outgoing 
and  the  incoming  tenant  the  custom  existed.  It  was 
spreading,  as  every  one  who  knows  will  admit,  before 
1870. 

"  The  real  reason  for  the  over-renting  was  the  immense 
competition.  It  was  made  a  frightful  grievance  if  you 
did  not  over-rent  and  give  the  land  to  the  highest  bidder. 

''  This  state  of  things  made  the  people  false  as  well  as 
poor.  The  Celt  is  naturally  imaginative,  but  he  got  into 
the  habit  of  promising  every  thing  in  the  world  to  get 
possession  of  the  land,  and  it  was  very  difficult  to  get 
him  out  when  once  in. 

"  My  estate  is  a  fair  example  of  an  Irish  property.  We 
have  never  altered  our  rents  ;  they  are  the  old  customary 
rents,  and  the  tenants  have  always  been  allowed  to  sell 
their  interests.  Before  1870  from  five  to  ten  years'  pur- 
chase was  commonly  paid  by  the  new  tenant  for  the  good- 
will, and  a  much  larger  amount  for  a  small  farm,  because 
there  is  greater  competition  for  small  farms  and  less 
money  is  required  to  work  them." 

A  returned  Ausualian  whom   I  met  accidentally  had 


122  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

complained  bitterly  of  my  host  as  a  tyrant  who  had  de- 
stroyed a  flourishing  village  at  the  demesne  gate.  One 
day  at  dinner  I  mentioned  the  story.  "  There  was  once," 
said  he,  "  a  large  distillery  here,  which  created  around  it 
a  little  village  of  operatives.  The  property  had  been  let 
to  the  distillers  in  the  last  century  under  a  hundred  years' 
lease.  The  small  tenants  used  to  pay  a  head  rent  to  me, 
but  they  were  only  laborers  in  the  distillery.  Thirty 
years  ago  the  distillery  was  removed  to  Dublin,  and  ten 
years  ago  the  lease  fell  in.  By  that  time,  out  of  the  two 
thousand  people  all  but  two  hundred  had  disappeared, 
and  those  who  remained  were  simply  paupers  with  pig- 
sties, unable  to  pay  any  rent  to  any  one,  and  doing 
nothing  when  I  got  rid  of  them  If  you  can  find  any  in- 
justice there  I  am  willing  to  argue  the  question. 

'*  In  the  last  few  years  I  have  evicted  only  one  man. 
The  tenant  of  a  farm  near  my  house  had  his  rent  fixed 
by  the  court  in  1881  at;^ii2  and  his  tenant  right  at ^650. 
Last  spring  he  owed  a  year's  rent.  On  Lady-day  he  said: 
'  Forgive  me  the  year's  rent  ;  pay  me  ^650,  and  I  will  go 
out.'  I  was  advised  that  it  would  not  be  safe  for  me  to 
take  up  the  farm  without  an  eviction,  for  the  tenant  right 
might  be  still  liable  for  the  man's  debts.  Then  I  went 
through  the  form  of  an  eviction.  He  removed  most  of 
his  goods  and  furniture  himself,  and  helped  the  officer  to 
turn  out  the  rest.  I  bought  all  the  produce  on  the  land, 
hay,  and  manure,  for ;^  100,  my  steward's  valuation.  If  he 
had  sold  his  interest  I  don't  believe  it  would  have  fetched 
iQ^oo,  and  out  of  that  I  should  have  had  a  claim  for 
£\\2.  And  yet  the  League  denounced  this  proceeding 
and  called  me  a  tyrant. 

"The  only  reason  why  the  present  national  movement 
has  greater  success  than  the  old  movements,  is  that  now 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 23 

the  leaders  are  working  the  agrarian  question,  O'Con- 
nell  dared  not  do  so,  and  Fenianism  failed  because  it  did 
not.  It  was,  however,  boldly  taken  up  by  Parnell  in  1878, 
and  he  has  admitted  that  he  would  never  have  *  taken  off 
his  coat '  for  the  tenants  except  as  a  means  to  an  end." 

"  The  continuance  of  the  stream  of  Nationalism  in  Ire- 
land is  due  to  Romanism  simply.  The  people  remain  as 
a  body  Catholics  ;  and  Catholics  never  can  be  loyal  to  a 
Protestant  government.  Romanism  is  an  ijnperium  in  im- 
perio.  The  spirit  of  Nationalism  has  died  out  in  Scot- 
land, because  Scotland  is  Protestant  ;  and  its  religion 
was  the  chief  cause  of  Russia's  difficulty  in  assimilating 
Poland.  If  Ireland  had  a  peasant  proprietary  it  would 
be  quieter,  but  not  loyal,  Ireland  will  never  be  loyal  in 
the  sense  in  which  England  is  loyal. 

"  Mill  says  the  difficulty  is  that  Ireland  is  big  enough 
to  wish  for  nationality,  but  not  big  enough  to  be  a 
nation.  Such  special  attachment  to  Ireland  is  not  in 
itself  a  bad  thing,  and  it  would  never  have  caused 
serious  difficulty  if  it  had  not  been  accentuated  by  the 
desire  to  rob. 

"  I  believe  that  if  the  land  question  were  settled,  the 
local  sentiment  would  be  satisfied  by  a  very  moderate 
scheme  of  Home  Rule.  Farmers  have  said  to  me  hun- 
dreds of  times  :  '  What  do  we  care  for  Home  Rule  ? 
What  we  want  is  to  get  land  for  the  value';  by  which 
expression  they  mean  'for  a  very  small  rent.'  Local 
feeling  may  be  satisfied  by  a  great  many  things,  however, 
but  national  feeling  can  be  satisfied  only  by  indepen- 
dence. It  might  be  willing  to  have  the  same  queen  as 
England,  but  it  would  never  admit  of  the  slightest  exer- 
cise of  power  in  Ireland  by  the  imperial  Parliament. 
The  national  sentiment,  however,  may  be  reduced  to  so 


124  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

small  a  factor  that  it  may  be  disregarded,  and  that  I 
think  is  both  possible  and  practicable. 

"  Before  the  famine  Ireland  gained  by  protection,  by  a 
high  duty  on  corn  ;  for  Ireland  produced  more  than  she 
consumed,  while  England  consumed  more  than  she  pro- 
duced. The  people  now  want  protection,  which  means 
bread  dearer  for  Irishmen  and  not  a  whit  dearer  for 
any  one  else.  As  for  a  duty  on  manufactures  that  is 
unnecessary,  for  the  chief  market  for  Blarney  tweeds  is 
America  in  spite  of  a  duty  of  sixty  per  cent.  What  an 
Irishman  sees  is  that  under  protection  forty  years  ago 
he  got  a  bounty  ;  but  what  he  does  not  see  is  that  now 
protection  would  simply  make  him  eat  his  own  guts. 
What  the  people  apparently  want  is  to  have  a  separate 
Ireland  and  to  have  the  advantage  of  protection  through- 
out Great  Britain  as  well. 

"  Three  quarters  of  Ireland  is  much  more  like  Eng- 
land than  it  is  like  Connaught.  The  specially  bad  part 
is  about  an  eighth  of  the  country,  the  western  fringe  of 
it.  In  my  mind's  eye  the  western  fringe  is  brown,  rock 
and  heather.  Then  there  is  another  eighth  a  little  less 
infertile. 

"  Irish  land  is  more  valuable  than  is  often  supposed. 
It  is  unjust  to  compare  an  Irish  farm  with  particular 
farms  in  England  that  are  now  vacant.  It  is  the  heavy 
wheat  lands  in  the  east  of  England  which  will  produce 
nothing  but  wheat,  and  are  expensive  to  cultivate,  usu- 
ally chalk  lands,  that  don't  pay  now.  Their  history  is 
curious.  They  used  to  be  sheep  lands,  and  then  when 
the  price  of  wheat  was  high  at  the  time  of  the  French 
wars  they  were  cultivated  and  paid  well  as  long  as  wheat 
was  high,  now  you  cannot  get  back  the  good  fine  grass 
which  was  the  product  of  centuries. 


IN  MUNSTER.  12$ 

"Prime  grass  lands  in  Ireland  fetch  now  almost  as 
much  as  ever.  I  let  much  of  my  land  on  grazing  leases 
for  nearly  j[^\  an  acre.  There  is  a  great  future  for  grass 
land.  Prime  cattle  will  always  pay.  The  present  depres- 
sion in  the  meat  market  is  only  temporary.  It  is  not  the 
foreign  competition  that  is  the  cause  of  the  depression, 
for  the  consumption  in  England  is  so  enormous  that  the 
foreign  importation  bears  but  a  small  proportion  to  the 
whole.  The  trouble  is  that  times  are  bad,  and  the  people 
are  out  of  employment  and  cannot  afford  meat.  For 
the  same  reason  the  inferior  parts  of  the  meat  are  not 
brought  to  market,  and  so  the  profit  is  further  lessened. 
The  people  who  would  eat  the  worse  parts  cannot  afford 
to  eat  any.  American  meat  does  not  compete  with  fine 
domestic  joints,  but  only  with  the  inferior.  Meat  will 
always  pay,  but  it  must  be  made  the  chief  thing,  and 
other  business  abandoned.  For  instance,  every  bit  of 
grain  I  grow  1  consume.  I  give  oats  to  the  horses, 
barley  to  the  cattle,  and  if  I  grew  wheat  I  would  give 
that  also  to  the  cattle.  Irish  graziers  have  not  con- 
ducted their  business  wisely.  The  Irish  farmer  never 
fattens  a  beast,  but  sells  it  when  it  is  only  a  year  or 
two  old.  Just  as  he  ceases  to  be  a  burden  on  the 
land,  he  is  sold,  and  is  fattened  in  England.  The  result 
has  been  a  progressive  deterioration  of  the  grass  land. 
It  needs  to  be  restored  by  top  dressing,  or  by  feeding  on 
imported  food  such  as  oil  cake.  With  wise  management 
the  land  will  soon  improve. 

"  The  just  price  for  good  land  under  any  compulsory 
bill  should  be  about  twenty  years'  purchase  of  a  fairly 
high  rent,  calculated  at  twenty  per  cent,  off,  and  payable 
in  a  lump  sum.  But  no  fair  price  is  likely  to  satisfy  the 
Irish  leaders.     They  are  only  satisfied  when  they  are 


126  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

robbing,  and  then  at  the  moment  of  robbery.  When  it  is 
done,  they  are  sorry  they  did  not  take  more. 

*'  Land  purchase,  I  think,  should  be  compulsory  at 
the  instance  of  the  landlord  on  the  entire  body  of  ten- 
ants on  his  estate.  The  estate  should  then  be  valued  by 
a  court,  taking  into  account  not  merely  the  rental  but 
all  the  circumstances,  at  a  capital  sura,  say  ;^ioo,ooo. 
All  the  chargees  and  mortgagees  of  the  property  should 
be  made  parties  to  the  proceeding.  Stock  of  the  face 
value  of  ;j^  100,000  should  then  be  issued  by  a  local  body, 
the  grand  jury  of  the  county,  or  a  special  board,  and 
guaranteed  by  the  government,  negotiable  and  bearing 
interest.  This  stock  should  then  be  divided  proportion- 
ally between  all  the  parties  in  interest.  The  only  par- 
ties then  left  to  be  dealt  with  would  be  the  local  authori- 
ties, the  imperial  government,  and  the  new  proprietors. 
The  local  authorities  would  collect  the  yearly  instalments 
of  the  purchase  money  in  the  same  way  and  by  the  same 
officers  as  the  local  rates  are  now  collected,  and  thus 
meet  the  interest  on  the  stock,  and  with  the  surplus  form 
a  sinking  fund  for  its  redemption.  On  default  in  the  pay- 
ment of  the  interest  the  imperial  government  should  have 
the  power  to  levy  on  any  of  the  local  rates  or  other  county 
property  in  the  same  way  as  they  now  levy  on  account  of 
unpaid  instalments  of  county  loans." 

"What  objection  do  you  have  to  Home  Rule?"  I 
asked  one  day. 

**  Only  the  objection  a  man  has  to  being  robbed  and 
murdered,"  he  replied,  *'  I  want  some  reasonable  guaran- 
ty for  the  protection  of  our  property  and  for  the  integ- 
rity of  our  throats.  This  is  not  due  to  any  exaggerated 
fear.  These  men  are  a  set  of  scoundrels,  and  they,  the 
leaders  of  the  League,  would  be  our  rulers. — the  League 


IN  MUNSTER.  12/ 

which  bases  its  power  en  midnight  outrages  and  terror- 
ism as  great  as  ever  was  in  France  under  the  Reign  of 
Terror.  The  men  who  won  the  battle  would  have  the 
power,  and  would  use  it  without  scruple,  to  crush  all 
classes  and  individuals  opposed  to  them.  Home  Rule 
would  probably  result  in  civil  war  in  the  north,  and  then 
there  would  be  retaliation  upon  us  in  the  south,  who  are 
too  few  to  fight.  There  is,  of  course,  bluster  on  both 
sides,  but  the  north  would  then  have  something  to  fight 
for.  In  a  revolution  the  extremists  always  have  things 
for  a  time  their  own  way.  We  know  the  party,  and  know 
that  under  Home  Rule  they  would  repeat  every  mistake 
that  has  been  made  from  the  time  of  Abraham  down,  at 
vast  expense.  If  this  country  were  farther  off  from 
England,  there  might  be  more  to  be  said  for  autonomy, 
but  now  it  is  and  can  be  only  a  farm  for  England.  How 
can  it  be  improved  as  a  farm,  is  the  question.  The  Na- 
tionalists wish  to  reclaim  more  wild  land.  What  I  want 
is  to  have  the  land  already  under  tillage  ploughed  two 
inches  deeper  all  over.  But  the  people  are  too  lazy  to 
do  this." 

A    UNIONIST    PRIEST. 

"For  some  years  after  I  came  here  in  1872,"  said  the 
priest,  "  when  I  went  about  asking  the  people  about  their 
relations  with  the  landlords,  I  heard  very  few  complaints. 
The  rents  were  usually  raised  here  by  the  tenants  them- 
selves, who  would  go  behind  a  neighbor's  back  to  the 
agent  and  offer  a  larger  rent.  The  landlords  were  hu- 
man, and  could  not  help  saying  :  '  You  must  pay  me  more, 
for  I  am  offered  more  by  your  neighbor.'  I  interfered 
on  many  occasions,  and  told  the  agent  that  the  old  ten- 
ant had  made  the  improvements  that  justified  the  in- 


128  IN  C/iSTLi   AN  J}    CA.^fN 

crease,  so  that  to  charge  him  more,  or  let  the  farm  to 
another,  was  to  rob  the  old  tenant  of  h^s  improvements. 

"  Two  years  before  the  agitation  began  butter  was 
often  as  high  as  i6os.  a  hundredweight  ;  cows  were  ex- 
ceedingly valuable,  selling  for  ^i8  or  ^20  a  head^wbile 
they  sell  now,  and  used  to  sell  previously,  for  £\?. 
Fancy  prices  were  put  on  grazing  land  ;  and  even  shop 
keepers  speculated  in  farms. 

"  That  property  over  there,  for  instance,  used  to  belong- 
to  a  Captain  L ,  who  was  hurt  in  a  hunting  accident. 

and  died  of  blood  poisoning,  leaving  a  widow  and  thret 
little  children.  The  trustees  put  the  estate  into  chancer)^, 
and  the  court  had  it  offered  for  sale  in  lots.  A  number 
of  people  came  to  bid.  Many  offered  any  rent  the  agent 
might  fix,  and  some  even  offered  5^.  an  acre  more  thap 
any  one  else  should  offer.  Proposals  were  required  in 
writing,  and  I  gave  many  who  asked  me  for  certificates 
of  solvency  letters  to  the  agent.  The  agent,  an  official 
of  the  court,  met  the  farmers  one  day  in  this  house,  and 
told  them  he  had  to  receive  all  the  offers  made  and  for- 
ward them  to  the  court,  but  that  the  rent  offered  was,  in 
his  opinion,  absurdly  high,  and  more  than  the  land  wa.'^ 
worth.  I  said  I  had  already  told  every  one  that  the  land 
was  originally  bog  mountain  that  Captain  L had  im- 
proved at  great  expense  ;  but  the  farmers  assured  me 
they  could  make  the  rent  and  a  good  profit  as  well.  Ii> 
two  years  prices  tumbled,  and  I  spoke  to  the  agent  my- 
self and  got  a  reduction  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  per  cent., 
and  since  then  fifteen  per  cent,  more  has  been  allowed. 

"In  1878  and  1879,  a  cry  was  raised  to  pay  no  more 
than  Griffith's  valuation.  Young  fellows  went  about  from 
house  to  house  dressed  up  as  bashi-bazouks,  by  precon- 
certed arrangement,  to  coerce  the  people  in  fun  to  adopt 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 29 

Griffith's  valuation.  Many  farmers  got  their  own  chil- 
dren to  write  notices  warning  them  to  pay  at  their  peril 
no  more  than  the  valuation,  signed  with  a  skull  and 
cross-bones.  Then  the  farmers  would  go  to  the  agent  and 
say  :  'I  would  willingly  pay  more,  but  I  don't  dare  to.' 

"  At  that  time  and  before  five  policemen  were  enough 
to  keep  order  in  the  town.  Soon  these  young  fellows 
who  went  round  masquerading  were  impressed  by  the 
secret  societies  and  became  regular  moonlighters.  The 
League  was  started,  and  I  believe  that  all  the  secret 
society  men  are  Leaguers,  though  all  the  Leaguers  are  not 
secret-society  men.  The  oath  of  the  secret  societies  is, 
as  I  know,  to  take  up  arms,  when  called  on,  for  the  Irish 
Republic.  Soon  after  the  League  was  established  two 
bailiffs  were  murdered  near  the  town,  many  more  were 
wounded,  cattle  were  injured,  and  hay  ricks  were  burned. 
Then  a  great  terror  began  to  prevail  throughout  the 
country.  A  company  of  soldiers  was  drafted  here,  and 
the  police  increased  to  eighty  or  a  hundred. 

"Tenants  anxious  to  pay  would  often  pay  the  land- 
lord through  third  persons  and  would  refuse  to  take  re- 
ceipts. Fifty  or  sixty  times  since  1881  or  1882  farmers 
have  paid  me  the  rent  to  my  own  cheek,  asking  me  to 
pay  over  to  the  landlord  the  full  rent,  if  necessary,  and 
to  get  them  what  abatement  I  could.  This  was  to  avoid 
the  vengeance  of  the  League.  You  can  have  no  idea  of 
the  degi-ee  of  terrorism  created  by  the  League.  I  could 
never  sanction  the  League,  as  a  priest. 

"  The  agitation  has  caused  much  indirect  loss  to  the 
country.  In  1875  there  were  some  60,000  visitors  at 
Killarney  ;  now  there  are  very  few.  Shooting,  fishmg, 
and  hunting  are  boycotted,  and  yet  such  sports  brought 
into  Limerick  ^25,000  or  more  a  year. 


I30  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  The  landlords  are  evidently  blamed  before  the  world, 
many  of  them  justly.  The  chief  rack-renters  were  pur- 
chasers under  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act.  They  had 
often  borrowed  the  purchase  money  and  had  to  raise  the 
rents  to  meet  the  interest.  Fines  of  ^loo  or;;^2oo  were 
also  sometimes  exacted  on  marriages,  transfers,  or  giving 
leases.  In  North  Kerry,  take  the  Locke  estate  for  ex- 
ample :  the  last  of  the  family  to  hold  it  was  a  Miss 
Locke,  who  married  an  Italian  count.  The  land  had 
been  let  at  a  very  low  figure,  and  the  tenants  refused  to 
take  leases  when  they  could,  as  happened  also  on  Lord 
Kenmare's  property.  The  property  was  bought  under 
the  Encumbered  Estates  Act  by  various  country  gentle- 
men in  Kerry  who  had  saved  money,  and  they  soon 
quadrupled  the  rents. 

''  Yet  the  old  landlords  usually  dealt  fairly  with  their 
tenants,  for  they  had  large  properties  and  were  not  crip- 
pled. On  the  Kenmare  estate,  before  the  Land  Act, 
;^7oo  of  arrears  were  cleared  off  in  one  year  by  a  stroke 
of  the  pen.  The  kindest  men  have  come  off  worst,  for 
they  had  most  arrears.  Lord  Kenmare's  mere  labor  bill 
was  sometimes  ^^300  a  week.  Up  to  the  time  of  the 
agitation  he  had  spent  ;^6o,ooo  in  improvements  for 
which  he  had  never  demanded  a  penny,  and  yet  he  has 
been  treated  as  badly  as  any  one. 

"  A  striking  thing  in  Kerry  is  the  apparent  anomaly 
that  the  cheaper  a  man  gets  his  land  the  more  idle  he  is 
apt  to  be.  There  is  one  townland  in  this  parish  let  at 
2S.  6d.  an  Irish  acre  to  one  man  for  ninety-nine  years. 
He  divided  it  between  his  five  or  six  children,  and  so  far 
as  I  can  see  no  improvement  has  been  made  by  the 
tenants,  and  they  are  about  the  poorest  in  the  parish. 
There  are  others  who  pay  heavier  rents  who  work  harder 
and  are  much  better  off. 


IN  MUNSTER.  13I 

"  There  is  a  great  want  of  practical  knowledge  among 
the  farmers.  They  keep  no  accounts  and  never  know 
how  they  stand.  The  women  might  make  good  butter 
if  they  took  pains  ;  but  it  is  carelessly  made,  and  the 
farmers  often  keep  the  butter  during  the  summer  for  the 
price  to  rise,  and  by  the  time  they  sell  it  it  has  deterio- 
rated. 

"In  1S72  the  potatoes  were  not  worth  taking  out  of 
the  ground.  I  had  to  send  to  Killarney  for  potatoes  fit 
to  eat,  and  when  I  inquired  about  the  seed,  I  found  they 
had  been  growing  potatoes  from  the  same  seed  for 
twenty  years.  I  got  seed  from  Dublin  and  raised  excel- 
lent potatoes ;  but  when  I  told  the  people  that  they 
should  change  the  soil  and  change  the  seed  every  two  or 
three  years,  they  would  n't  understand,  and  said  I  man- 
aged the  land  better  than  they  did.  One  year  I  took 
a  field  on  the  road  to  the  station.  The  year  before  it 
had  n't  paid.  I  took  it  for  a  smart  rent,  to  raise  a  good 
oat  crop,  for  the  oats  are  as  bad  here  as  the  potatoes,  for 
the  same  reason.  I  got  oats  from  Cork,  and  the  oats  I 
raised  were  better  than  the  seed.  The  field  was  by  the 
road,  where  every  one  could  see  it,  and  I  drew  the  peo- 
ple's attention  to  it.  Then  they  began  to  think  I  was  a 
little  touched  in  my  head  on  the  subject  of  seed.  In 
1879  the  potatoes  failed.  I  got  champions  for  seed,  and 
planted  champions  and  some  of  the  old  potatoes  in  the 
same  field.  The  champions  alone  survived  ;  but  then  it 
was  too  late. 

"  It  is  important  to  dispel  the  ignorance  of  the  farmers. 
I  would  have  agricultural  teachers,  to  travel  about  and 
teach  something  of  practical  farming.  There  should 
be  an  agricultural  school,  where  farmers'  sons  could  go, 
in  a   central  place.     Glasnevin  is   not  central  enough. 


132  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

What  teaching  there  is  now  is  too  theoretical.  Attach  an 
acre  or  two  to  every  national  school. 

"  A  small  duty  on  flour  would  answer  all  the  Irish  need 
of  protection.  This  would  start  the  flour  mills.  Beyond 
this  I  would  not  interfere  with  free  trade,  for  if  there  had 
been  free  trade  in  1848  there  would  have  been  nothing 
like  a  famine. 

''  Peasant  proprietorship  would  satisfy  the  people. 
The  farmers  would  then  cease  to  agitate  for  Home  Rule. 
I  would  have  a  measure  of  compulsory  sale  and  pur- 
chase, and  in  estimating  the  value  of  the  land,  I  would 
look  neither  at  the  valuation  nor  the  rent,  but  simply  at 
the  condition  of  the  land,  allowing  for  unexhausted  im- 
provements. 

"  Finally,  let  the  government  help  the  people  along  the 
coast  to  make  nets  and  build  boats.  Then  the  sea  would 
be  their  farm." 

NATIONAL    LEAGUERS    AT    KILLARNY. 

The  secretary  of  the  League  at  Killarney  is  a  respect- 
able auctioneer,  and  he  invited  me  at  once  to  a  commit- 
tee meeting  in  the  evening.  The  room  was  like  a  lodge 
room,  but  there  was  no  secrecy  or  formality  about  the 
proceedings.  The  only  business  was  the  distribution  of 
some  money  subscribed  by  the  central  board  for  eleven 
laborers  discharged  by  Lord  Kenmare  for  refusing  to 
work  on  the  farm  of  an  evicted  tenant.  Five  members 
were  present,  earnest,  quiet-looking  men  of  the  type  of 
the  average  Odd-Fellows  in  a  Massachusetts  country 
town.  Their  meetings,  they  said,  were  in  no  sense  secret 
and  they  had  no  pass-words  or  grips.  They  were  essen- 
tially not  what  the  government  was  trying  to  make  of 
them,  a  secret   society.     They  neither  did  nor  thought 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 33 

any  thing  that  might  not  be  published  in  a  newspaper. 
They  wished  to  win  national  autonomy  and  worked  for 
it  all  they  could.  The  local  branches  had  no  initiative, 
but  whenever  there  was  any  doubt  about  the  propriety  of 
any  action,  they  referred  the  matter  to  the  central  board. 
Their  part  was  to  foster  every  spark  of  independence 
among  the  people. 

The  outrages  in  Kerry  were  the  doing  of  persons  who 
acted  on  their  own  behalf,  and  the  League  now  con- 
demned them,  though  when  moonlighting  first  began  it 
was  difficult  not  to  sympathize  with  some  outrages  that 
were  excited  by  injustice.  It  was  essential  that  the  ten- 
ants should  join  in  refusing  to  pay  exorbitant  rents. 
There  were  some  years  ago  a  number  of  old-fashioned 
farmers  who  believed  that  landlordism  was  part  of  the 
system  of  the  universe,  and  that  rents  must  be  paid  at 
any  sacrifice.  Some  young  farmers'  son?,  more  liberally 
educated  than  their  fathers,  found  that  these  old  men 
could  only  be  influenced  by  terror,  and  then  they  organ- 
ized these  moonlight  excursions.  Individually  Leaguers 
sympathized  at  first  with  these  young  fellows,  but  now 
they  are  absolutely  opposed  to  any  outrage,  as  they  feel 
sure  of  getting  their  ends  by  legal  methods. 

Only  a  few  days  before,  the  League  had  been  pro- 
claimed, and  my  companions  felt  some  curiosity  to  know 
what  the  proclamation  meant.  "  We  may  be  imprisoned," 
they  said,  ''  but  we  will  meet  as  long  as  we  are  free." 

KERRY    OUTRAGES. 

About  Killarney  "  moonlighting "  still  continues. 
"  Near  here,"  said  a  gentleman  who  fortunately  finds 
scholarship  more  lucrative  than  his  small  property, 
"  Fleming  wanted  a  farm  that  a  widow  had  given  up. 


134  I^  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

When  he  apphed  at  the  office,  they  told  him  it  had  been 
given  to  Murphy.  A  day  or  two  later  some  relations  of 
Fleming  met  Mrs.  Murphy  and  said  :  '  Well,  he  has  the 
land,  perhaps  he  wont  enjoy  it  long.'  Within  a  week 
Murphy  was  shot. 

"  Sheehan,  a  Leaguer,  with  one  brother  a  priest  and 
another  at  Stonyhurst,  bought  an  interest  in  a  farm.  A 
neighbor  envied  it  and  offered  more,  and  finally  got  a 
band  of  moonlighters  and  fired  into  Sheehan's  house  ; 
but  the  man  still  sticks  on,  and  is  protected  by  police. 

"  About  this  time  last  year,  Cornelius  Murphy  bought 
an  interest  in  a  farm  from  Moynihan,  near  Kantuck,  in 
County  Cork.  The  deed  was  drawn  and  signed  in  the 
presence  of  the  P.  P.  of  Banteen  ;  the  money  was  paid, 
the  farm  stocked  and  ploughed.  The  end  of  January, 
Moynihan  summoned  Murphy  to  give  the  farm  up,  as  some 
one  else  had  offered  more  for  it.  I  asked  the  priest  if 
there  was  any  thing  in  the  deed  to  justify  such  a  claim. 
He  replied:  'Nothing  in  the  world.'  On  March  13th, 
masked  men  called  on  Murphy,  late  at  night,  turned  him 
and  his  wife  out  of  bed,  and  made  him  swear,  with  three 
pistols  pointed  at  his  head,  to  give  the  farm  up  the  next 
day.  A  few  weeks  afterwards  I  got  a  letter  from  one 
Cahill,  a  returned  American,  asking  to  be  recognized  as 
tenant,  since  Moynihan  had  surrendered  the  farm.  Mur- 
phy also  wrote  me,  April  nth,  saying  :  '  I  wish  to  inform 
your  honor  that  I  gave  up  Moynihan  farm  as  the  Rev. 
Father  Mowery  has  settled  the  matter.  It  did  not  pay 
me,  but  I  thought  better  to  get  out  of  danger — there  is 
nothing  so  good  as  a  quite  life,  and  so  long  as  I  would 
hold  that  place  I  would  not  have  much  pace  of  mind 
and  dealing  with  these  people.'  " 

A  professional  man  in  Kerry  illustrated  the  prevailing 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 35 

terrorism  when  he  said  :  "  It  would  be,  I  believe,  a  mat- 
ter of  life  and  death  with  me  if  I  told  you  now  the  whole 
truth  about  the  country.  Before  1879,  you  could  n't 
with  p^ioo  have  bribed  a  Kerryman  born  at  home  to  as- 
sassinate any  one  ;  but  the  other  day  I  said  to  an  intel- 
ligent P.  P.,  in  his  Bishop's  presence  :  *  Now  one  could 
probably  find  a  dozen  men  within  ten  miles  who  would 
assassinate  any  one  for  half  a  crown.'  *  I  fear,'  said  he, 
'  that  is  absolutely  true.' 

''The  law  now  is  not  equal  to  the  punishment  of  the 
graver  offences.  If  six  moonlighters  were  seen  crossing 
a  field  in  open  daylight,  not  a  man  would  dare  for  any 
money  to  tell  the  police. 

"  I  asked  a  man  the  other  day,  What  is  it  Murphy  did 
that  made  them  shoot  him  ? '  '  Well,'  said  he,  glancing 
cautiously  around,  '  I  think  it  was  pure  blackguardism  ; 
the  Divil  got  hold  of  them.'  '  Is  there  any  sympathy  for 
him  ? '  '  Shure,  your  honor,  there  is,  but  if  I  met  a 
neighbor  I  could  n't  trust  him,  and  would  say,  if  he  asked 
me,  the  Divil  meant  him.' 

"  After  the  imprisonment  of  Parnell,  and  the  no-rent 
manifesto,  many  men  were  visited  at  night  and  asked  to 
produce  their  pass-books.  Then,  if  they  were  found  to 
have  paid  any  rent,  they  were  ordered  to  stand  up  with 
their  faces  to  the  wall,  and  their  legs  were  peppered  with 
shot.  Sometimes  their  calves  were  shot  away,  and  many 
were  crippled  for  life. 

"  Murphy  was  killed  by  having  his  leg  shot  off  above 
the  ankle. 

"  Leahy,  for  outbidding  another  for  a  farm  of  Lord 
Kenmare's  was  shot  and  frightfully  bayonetted  before 
his  wife's  face.     No  evidence  was  given  at  the  trial. 

"  Donaghue,  within  a  mile  of  Killarney,  was  shot  in  the 


136  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

legs,  four  years  ago,  for  buying  out  a  broken-down 
tenant  farmer,  part  of  the  money  going  to  pay  for  arrears 
of  rent. 

"  Rehilly  was  murdered  near  the  workhouse  in  Killar- 
ney,  on  his  way  home,  in  December,  1885,  about  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  because  he  had  been  the  care- 
taker of  an  evicted  farm. 

"  Brown,  a  farmer  near  here,  purchased  his  own  and  a 
neighboring  farm,  which  he  sublet.  His  neighbor  did  n't 
pay,  and  Brown  threatened  to  eject  him.  A  few  days 
later  Brown  was  shot  while  working  in  a  field  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day.  His  two  brothers  in  Mollahiffe  are  to 
this  day  not  allowed  to  see  or  help  the  widow. 

"  Curtin  was  a  personal  friend  of  mine.  He  was  a  cul- 
tivated man,  and  had  been  educated  by  the  Jesuits.  In 
1848  he  lived  in  Limerick,  and  harbored  O'Gorman  after 
the  rising.  At  the  time  of  the  celebrated  Blennerhasset 
election  he  was  a  tenant  of  Lord  Kenmare's,  and  was  the 
only  one  of  the  tenants  who  refrained  from  voting  for 
'the  landlord's  man.  He  was  always  generous  to  his 
neighbors,  lending  money  and  machines.  In  the  autumn 
of  1875,  Curtin,  then  a  member  of  the  League  here, 
headed  a  deputation  of  tenants  to  Lord  Kenmare  to  ask 
for  a  reduction.  Lord  Kenmare  referred  them  to  the 
trustees  in  whose  hands  the  property  was,  and  the  trus- 
tees said  that,  since  the  Land  Act,  they  could  only  make 
a  reduction  on  the  order  of  a  Land  Court.  Curtin  then 
was  one  of  the  first  to  pay  rent.  Soon  after  he  was 
visited  by  masked  men  who  demanded  arms.  He  refused, 
ordered  them  to  go,  shot  and  killed  one,  Casey,  a  neigh- 
bor's son,  and  was  shot  himself.  The  next  Sunday 
Casey  was  buried  near  Muckross  Abbey,  and  Curtin,  the 
same  day,  at  Mollahiffe.     Scarcely  a  man  went  to  Cur- 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 37 

tin's  funeral,  while  the  whole  ccuntry-side  attended 
Casey's,  and  the  curate  who  officiated  there  told  me  the 
whole  congregation  rose  to  leave  the  church  the  minute 
he  began  to  regret  the  death  of  Curtin,  and  to  avoid  a 
scandal  he  turned  back  to  the  altar  and  went  on  with  the 
service.  All  over  Castleisland  that  Sunday  placards 
were  posted  warning  the  people  not  to  pay  rent  if  they 
would  escape  the  fate  of  Curtin  of  Mollahiffe.  Mrs. 
Curtin  and  her  daughters  prosecuted,  and  a  brother  of 
Casey  was  convicted  at  Christmas.  Meantime  I  often 
heard  the  people  cursing  :  '  May  the  Lord  sweep  them  off 
the  face  of  the  earth  for  attacking  the  poor  moonlighters  ! ' 

"  If  Curtin  had  done  like  ]\Ir.  Kilbride  of  Luggacurran, 
who,  though  a  rich  man,  allowed  himself  to  be  evicted  at 
a  loss  of  six  or  seven  thousand  pounds,  he  would  be 
alive  to-day." 

Through  a  boggy  country,  with  the  fields  separated  by 
trenches  cleanly  cut  like  gashes  in  new  cheese,  past 
thatched  huts  with  great  piles  of  peat  silhouetted  in- 
tensely black  against  their  whitewashed  walls,  1  drove 
to  Mollahiffe.  Girls  on  the  road  hooded  their  faces  with 
their  arms,  and  hooted  when  we  asked  the  way  to  Mrs. 
Curtin's.  By  the  large  iron  gateway  a  policeman  was 
pacing,  and  a  few  yards  within  was  the  house,  comforta- 
ble to  look  at,  densely  ivy-grown. 

"  I  can  never  live  here  in  peace,"  said  Mrs.  Curtin, 
"  but  they  won't  let  me  go.  I  tried  to  sell  it  at  auction, 
but  notices  were  posted  that  any  purchaser  would  get  the 
same  treatment  as  old  Curtin. 

"  Laborers  will  not  work  for  us  ;  one  we  engaged  last 
year  went  off,  saying  he  had  been  brought  before  the 
League  and  forbidden  to  stay.  The  smith  won't  work 
for  me,  nor  the  carpenter  ;  they  say  they  would  be  glad 


138  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

to,  but  are  afraid  of  the  'night-boys.'  For  doing  a  rew 
jobs  for  us,  as  it  was,  the  smith  had  his  windows  broken. 
The  baker  still  supplies  us,  but  his  house  has  been  fired, 
his  windows  smashed,  and  his  gates  unhinged.  The 
neighbors  won't  buy  of  us  ;  they  say  they  would  only  be 
buying  trouble  for  themselves.  In  June  I  bought  some 
cattle  in  Milltown,  but  the  farmer  who  sold  them  has 
been  accused  by  a  cobbler,  the  president  of  the  League. 
A  fortnight  ago  an  outhouse  was  burned,  uninsured, /(?r 
110  company  will  insure  us.  Some  months  ago  Mr.  Spring, 
a  neighbor,  bought  a  calf  from  me.  Tuesday  last  it  was 
found  by  the  roadside  with  its  throat  slit.  He  borrowed 
a  turf  '  rail'  from  us  about  the  same  time.  Ten  days  ago, 
at  night,  it  was  broken  up  and  the  pieces  thrown  into  the 
river.  Three  or  four  weeks  ago,  near  the  church,  my 
driver,  a  faithful  servant,  was  beaten  and  left  for  dead 
on  the  road.  The  other  night  the  house  next  door  was 
fired  into  ;  and  the  next  Sunday  notices  were  posted 
warning  the  woman  there  not  to  let  her  daughter  talk  to 
our  policemen. 

"  Our  servants  are  asked  sometimes  whether  they  got 
any  of  the  blood-money,  and  often,  going  to  chapel,  they 
have  the  door  banged  in  their  faces. 

"  Whenever  the  backs  of  the  police  are  turned,  the 
people  thrust  out  their  tongues  at  us  and  spit  at  us. 

"  We  have  had  to  hear  mass  in  the  sacristy  ever  since 
the  murder.  The  people  broke  up  our  bench  in  the 
church.  Father  Pat  got  us  a  new  one  in  Cork,  for  no 
one  would  make  it  nearer.  The  driver  who  brought  it 
out  was  beaten,  and  finally  forced  to  go  to  America  ;  and 
the  new  pew  was  torn  from  its  place  and  broken  to  bits 
in  the  churchyard. 

"  The  reason  for  all  this  was  our  prosecuting  my  hus- 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 39 

band's  murderers.  If  I  had  n't  happened  to  recognize 
some  of  them,  I  should  never  have  suspected  them  to 
be  neighbors.  I  thought  no  one  who  knew  him  would 
hurt  him.  I  had  made  him  join  the  League,  for  they 
said  they  would  boycott  any  one  who  did  n't.  The  last 
words  he  said,  as  he  lay  in  the  doorway,  were  :  *  Go 
home,  boys,  now  ! '  " 

In  the  centre  of  a  large  untidy  farmyard  is  the  high 
thatched  hut  of  Mrs.  Casey.  She  looked  like  an  old 
chieftain,  with  pale  delicate  face  surrounded  by  the  stiff 
frill  of  her  white  cap,  as  she  sat  by  the  peat-fire  watch- 
ing the  bubbles  rising  in  an  immense  iron  pot  hanging 
from  the  crane. 

"  For  the  death  of  Curtin,"  she  said  in  a  clear,  strong 
voice,  "three  Sullivans,  two  Caseys,  Darley,  Spring, 
MacMahon,  Clifford,  and  others  were  arrested.  The 
Curtins  swore  black,  brown,  and  white  against  Darley 
and  my  sons,  and  laid  low  one  of  widoAv  Sullivan's. 

"  Curtin's  people  had  got  blood-money  before  :  his 
grandfather  in  '98  was  an  informer. 

"  If  those  boys  did  that  thing,  they  merely  went  for 
arms  ;  a  foolish  thing,  but  it  has  been  done  throughout 
Ireland,  and  is  done  to-day. 

"  As  long  as  I  am  alive,  and  my  children,  and  their 
children  live,  will  we  try  to  root  the  Curtins  out  of  the 
land.  Now,  I  will,  I  will  do  it.  Was  n't  a  young  man 
more  than  equal  to  that  old  codger  ? 

"  Yet  I  am  better  off  than  she  is.  I  can  go  out  to-day, 
and  I  won't  have  peelers  about  mc,  and  I  won't  be 
hooted  and  booed. 

"  My  oldest  boy  went  insane  and  I  am  sick,  so,  as 
long  as  I  live,  the  Curtins  shall  have  my  good  wishes. 

"  The   Land  Acts  are  no   good   to  us.     What  's  the 


I40  JN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN, 

good  of  going  into  court,  when,  if  you  get  a  reasonable 
reduction,  the  landlord  can  appeal  ? 

"  We  pay  the  same  for  that  gravel  pit  there  as  for  any 
thing  else.     My  landlord  has  made  over  ^600  out  of  it. 

"  The  rates,  the  county  cess,  and  the  peeler-tax  are 
are  now  more  than  the  rent.  A  firkin  of  butter  is  sell- 
ing for  half  price,  and  there  's  no  price  for  any  thing.  I 
hope  I  won't  die  till  I  've  seen  some  good  sights." 

A    NATIONALIST    EDITOR    IN    KERRY. 

Mr.  D.  Harrington  is  a  brother  of  the  member  of  Par- 
liament and  the  Secretary  of  the  League,  and  is  the 
popular  editor  of  the  Kerry  Sentinel,  a  man  of  consider- 
able force  of  character. 

'*  There  have  been  outrages  committed  in  Tralee  and 
Castleisland.  Miss  Thompson  of  Feenit  was  obliged 
to  have  police  protection,  and  an  agent  of  Lord  Ken- 
mare's  was  murdered  not  many  years  ago  ;  but  over 
the  fellows  who  commit  the  outrages  the  League  has 
no  control,  though  a  few  of  them  may  be  Leaguers. 
Each  town  has  its  own  set  of  rowdies,  but  there  is 
no  connection  between  them.  Most  of  the  outrages 
are  due  to  private  motives.  For  instance,  some  of  the 
landlords  are  very  immoral  men.  Wives  and  daughters 
are  sometimes  sent  with  the  rent  to  the  great  house 
for  reasons  that  are  not  generally  known.  When  Mr. 
Stead  was  here  I  gave  him  copies  of  some  of  this  evi- 
dence. Every  thing,  however,  is  twisted  into  an  agrarian 
crime.  I  have  just  paid  as  a  rate-payer  the  last  instal- 
ment granted  the  widow  of  a  man  who,  I  believe,  was 
killed  in  a  street  brawl. 

"  This  county  is  purely  agricultural,  and  the  poverty 
of   the    tenant    farmers   causes    general    distress.      The 


IN  MUNSTER.  I4I 

tradespeople  suffer  as  much  as  the  landlords.  Our 
books  show  ;^  1,400  of  debts,  of  which  we  shall  scarcely 
get  one  pound.  Of  course,  for  the  time,  no  improve- 
ments are  being  made,  and  the  land  is  deteriorating. 
The  farmers  are  waiting  till  the  land  question  is  settled. 
They  would  be  very  glad  to  settle  it,  but  the  movement 
has  gone  so  far  that  they  won't  be  satisfied  with  any  but 
a  proper  settlement.  The  terms  under  Lord  Ashbourne's 
Act  were  usually  made  too  high.  I  advised  the  tenants 
to  be  very  careful  about  going  in  under  it.  Before  they 
purchase  they  should  have  a  fair  rent  fixed  as  a  basis. 
The  courts  are  doing  that  very  reasonably,  and  no  new 
machinery  is  needed.  The  reductions  given  by  the 
courts  have  been  generally  greater  than  those  demanded 
under  the  Plan  of  Campaign.  The  Plan  has  not  been 
adopted  on  a  single  property  here,  and  we  have  paid  for 
>t  adopting  it. 

"■  The  flatlands  in  Kerry  are  in  the  hands  of  graziers, 
and  are  turned  into  sheep  walks,  while  the  people  are 
scratching  the  sides  of  the  mountains.  If  all  were  thrown 
into  agricultural  land  and  implements  were  given  the 
people,  we  could  compete  with  America.  The  last  re- 
source is  a  duty  on  American  corn  and  flour." 

"But  isn't  it  wrong,"  I  asked,  "for  a  man  to  refuse 
either  to  pay  rent  or  to  give  up  his  farm  ?  " 

"  Not  if  half  of  the  land  is  his,"  replied  Mr.  Harring- 
ton. "  To  evict  a  man  and  to  burn  his  house  is  a  crime 
for  which  a  landlord  should  be  prosecuted,  for  he  has 
destroyed  the  property  of  another. 

"  Home  rule  will  come,  there  's  no  doubt  about  that. 
Would  n't  it  be  wiser  for  the  landlords  even  now  to 
throw  in  their  lot  with  the  people  and  not  talk  about  tak- 
ing their  money  and  leaving  the  country  ?    If  they  stayed 


142  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

with  us,  they  would  soon  become  leaders  of  the  people 
instead  of  men  like  my  brothers.  But  they  are  blind 
and  deaf,  and  persist  in  raising  dishonest  cries  about 
persecution  of  the  Protestants.  As  to  Catholic  oppres- 
sion.    H ,  a  Protestant  and   Conservative,  is  Clerk 

of  the  Crown  and  Peace  here.  His  son  Richard  is  So- 
licitor to  the  Board  of  Guardians,  which  is  Nationalist  to 
a  man.  His  second  son  is  Deputy  Sheriff.  The  Dep- 
uty Sub-sheriff  is  also  of  the  same  party.  The  Secretary 
of  the  Grand  Jury  is  a  brother  of  the  Knight  of  Kerry. 
He  makes  probably  ^900  a  year.  Such  men  do  not 
want  Home  Rule.  Yet  there  are  a  hundred  thousand 
men  like  myself,  who  would  not  care  for  Home  Rule, 
and  would  not  welcome  it,  if  it  meant  the  oppression  of 
our  Protestant  fellow-countrymen. 

"  It  is  the  English  manufacturers  who  are  the  chief 
opponents  of  Home  Rule,  because  they  are  afraid  of  the 
development  of  Irish  manufactures.  Parnell  said  at  one 
time  that  we  would  want  protection  for  two  or  three 
years.  Free  trade  unquestionably  is  a  great  evil.  But 
one  great  benefit  Home  Rule  would  bring,  would  be  that 
wealthy  Irishmen  would  return  from  America  and  Aus- 
tralia, and  settle  down  here  and  start  industries  as  they 
never  would  except  under  Home  Rule.  It  is  true  we 
have  no  coal-fields  ;  but  I  can  get  coal  here  in  Tralee 
cheaper  than  I  could  in  Kent. 

"  This  *  physical  force  '  business  is  the  merest  folly. 
We  have  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  restraining  the 
more  violent  men.  I  would  go  so  far  as  this  that  if 
pushed  to  the  wall  I  would  sell  my  life  as  dearly  as  pos- 
sible ;  but  I  believe  we  shall  win  all  we  want  without 
shedding  one  drop  of  blood.  Davitt  is  a  brave  man  and 
self-sacrificing,  but  this  movement  needs  a  cool  head  like 


IN  MUNSTER.  I43 

Pamell's.     It  is  easy  for  Americans  to  talk  of  fighting, 
for  they  have  nothing  to  lose." 

A    KERRY    LAND    AGENT. 

One  of  the  best-hated  men  in  Ireland  was  my  host  for 
a  night,  in  a  police-protected  country  house  on  the  ro- 
mantic coast  of  Kerry.  As  I  watched  him  laughing 
merrily,  as  his  daughter  sang  the  magnificent  mock- 
heroic  chorus  of  "  The  Ballyhooly  Horse,"  it  was  star- 
tling to  reflect  that  this  apparently  amiable,  scholarly 
gentleman  was  nearly  blown  up  by  dynamite  in  his  own 
house  not  many  years  ago,  and  that  his  name  is  a  by- 
word and  a  curse  throughout  the  county. 

"  Gladstone's  Land  Bill,"  he  said,  "  is  the  cause  of  the 
present  hopeless  confusion.  By  that  act  the  letting  of  land 
ceased  to  be  a  commercial  transaction,  and  now  the  motto 
of  the  people  is  '  work  as  you  like,  you  are  bound  to  live.' 
In  Kerry  there  never  was  any  custom  like  the  Ulster 
Tenant  Right  before,  though  the  landlord  often  allowed 
a  tenant  to  nominate  his  successor,  but  that  was  a  very 
different  thing,  for  the  landlord  then  could  make  sure  of 
the  accession  of  an  improving,  industrious  man. 

"The  agitation  is  purely  agrarian  and  communistic. 
It  is  spreading  all  over  Europe,  but  in  France  is  checked 
by  the  number  of  small  proprietors,  always  a  conservative 
body.  It  is  the  result  of  distress,  and  the  distress  is  due 
to  over-population.  In  Kenmare  a  man  had  a  farm  pay- 
ing ;^io  a  year.  He  wished  to  divide  it  between  his  two 
sons.  I  told  him  that  was  against  the  rules  of  the  estate, 
and,  besides,  would  impoverish  his  sons.  He  insisted. 
To  test  him,  I  said  he  would  have  to  pay  me  £l  down 
for  the  privilege.  '  Certainly,'  he  replied  ;  but  of  course 
I  did  n't  allow  it.     Another  tenant  of  mine  got  a  judicial 


144  ^^  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

rent  fixed  at  ^30.  The  penalty  for  subdivision  was  a 
heavy  forfeit.  He  came  to  me  and  said  :  '  For  God's 
sake,  let  me  keep  my  two  sons.'  The  best-farmed  land 
in  Great  Britain  is  East  Lothian.  Five  sixths  of  that  is 
in  tillage,  and  yet  the  population  is  less  per  acre  than 
several  counties  in  Ireland  that  are  wholly  grass  land. 

"  The  dishonesty  of  the  Paruellites  was  shown  by 
their  opposition  to  a  clause  proposed  by  Gladstone  in 
the  Land  Bill  of  188 1,  granting  a  million  pounds  for  as- 
sisting emigration.  Parnell  wants  the  people  at  home  in 
order  to  force  the  hand  of  the  government.  What 
would  be  thought  of  a  popular  leader  in  New  York  who 
refused  the  offer  of  a  philanthropist  to  give  poor  people 
tickets  to  New  Mexico,  where  there  is  plenty  of  work 
and  grub  ?  My  son  goes  to  New  Mexico  to  farm,  why 
should  my  tenant  object  to  having  his  son  go  there  ? 

"  Applicants  for  government  aid  for  emigration  are 
required  to  present  a  certificate  of  their  respectability 
from  the  parish  priest.  A  Protestant  clergyman  asked 
me  the  other  day  if  he  might  sign  such  certificates,  as  the 
parish  priest  had  given  out  that  he  would  not  sign  any. 

"Another  reason  for  Irish  distress  is  their  bad  farm- 
ing. In  Scotland  there  are  about  a  million  acres  devoted 
to  agriculture,  to  four  million  in  Ireland,  and  yet  Scot- 
land produces  more  cereals.  In  Scotland  a  pair  of 
horses  to  sixty  acres  of  tillage  is  the  usual  allowance. 
Here  on  a  farm  I  own,  of  fifty-three  acres,  there  are  fif- 
teen horses.  What  the  farmer  does  with  them  I  can't 
imagine. 

"  The  distress  is  increased  by  the  farmers  squandering 
their  money  on  drink.  One  railroad  company  brought 
to  Tralee,  in  1886,  sixty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
whiskey,  and  the  two  companies  together  about  a  hun- 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 45 

dred  thousand  dollars'  worth.  "Whiskey  used  to  be  six 
shillings  a  gallon,  but  now  more  is  drunk  when  it  is  ten 
shillings. 

"  It  is  now  the  shirts  against  the  shirtless  ;  and  if  a 
general  Land  Purchase  Bill  were  passed,  the  question  of 
Home  Rule  would  be  dropped,  for  then  most  of  the 
voters  would  have  something  to  lose. 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  advantageous  to  the  tenant 
than  the  purchase  clauses  of  Lord  Ashbourne's  Act. 
Suppose  a  man  is  paying  ^100  a  year  ;  he  could  visually 
buy  his  farm  for  ^1,800,  the  interest  on  which,  at  four 
per  cent.,  is  ;^72,  a  reduction  at  once  of  about  thirty 
per  cent.  He  should  be  willing  to  have  those  clauses 
extended  and  to  have  the  rents  fixed  as  a  basis  for  pur- 
chase by  the  present  land  courts.  The  landlords  in 
general  have  paid  twenty-one  years'  purchase  for  their 
property.  I  did,  and  that  to  the  government,  under  the 
Encumbered  Estates  Act.  We  should  expect  to  be  paid  at 
least  eighteen  years'  purchase.  The  Nationalists  say  : 
'  You  bought  a  stone  horse,  and  should  take  the  conse- 
sequences  '  ;  but  the  government  said  to  me  when  I 
bought :  '  We  are  selling  in  order  to  simplify  titles.'  They 
might  recompense  me.  AVhat  right  has  the  government 
to  give  me  over  to  the  rabble  ?  They  should  at  least  buy 
my  property  first  before  giving  me  over  ;  for  if  I  stayed 
here,  within  a  year  my  throat  would  be  cut.  When  they 
tried  to  blow  up  my  house  with  dynamite,  there  were  six- 
teen people  in  the  house,  yet  all  those  lives  were  to  be 
sacrificed  ;  and  not  a  single  priest,  when  I  met  them, 
except  Father  John,  of  my  own  parish,  expressed  any 
disapproval. 

"  The  melancholy  thing  about  the  present  agitation  is 
that  it  strikes  at  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad  landlords, 


146  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

and  at  the  best  most  severely,  since  they  are  the  most 
yielding.  Mr.  Oliver  and  Lord  Cork  have  the  two  cheap- 
est-let properties  in  Kerry,  and  yet  one  was  shot  at  and 
the  other  has  to  have  police  protection.  In  six  years, 
during  which  I  was  Lord  Kenmare's  agent,  he  spent 
more  money  in  improving  his  Kerry  property  than  he 
took  out  of  it.  An  estate  under  my  charge  in  1840  was 
subject  to  a  rental  of  ^2,376,  which  was  well  and  punctu- 
ally paid.  At  that  time  there  was  no  railroad  within  a 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  it.  Now  it  has  a  railroad 
station  on  it  ;  and  although  the  landlord  has  expended 
considerable  sums  on  improving  it,  the  rental  has  been 
reduced  by  the  Land  Commissioners  to  ;^  1,892.  During 
the  same  period  the  rental  of  Orkney  has  increased  from 
^19,332  to  ^56,850,  or  194  per  cent.;  and  yet,  the 
present  M.  P.  for  Orkney  has  complained  about  Irish 
rack-rents.  The  landlords  will  turn  at  last,  for  twelve 
years'  purchase  will  leave  them  nothing  above  their 
charges  ;  and  their  charges,  including  mortgages,  family 
charges,  duties  to  the  government,  tithes,  and  interest  on 
drainage  loans,  are  undiminished.  I  invested  ^2^50,000 
in  Irish  land  ;  now  if  any  one  will  offer  me  ^30,000,  I 
will  take  it  and  be  off. 

"  It  is  said  that  the  tenants  are  weighed  down  by  ar- 
rears hanging  over  them  from  the  famine  times  ;  but  by 
the  Arrears  Act  of  18S2  a  tenant  could  come  into  court, 
and  on  the  payment  of  one  year's  rent,  all  arrears  prior 
to  the  judicial  rent  fixed  for  the  current  year  were  wiped 
off,  the  government  paying  the  landlord  a  second  year's 
rent.  For  this  purpose  a  million  pounds  were  granted. 
In  many  cases  I  took  one  year's  rent  from  the  govern- 
ment, and  forgave  the  tenant  every  thing. 

"  My  plan  for  meeting  the  Home-Rule  agitators  is  this : 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 47 

*  You  want  Home  Rule,  do  you  ?  Then  pay  your  share 
of  the  national  debt ;  pay  off  any  loyalists  who  wish  to 
leave  the  country  ;  appoint  the  President  of  the  United 
States  and  the  Emperor  of  Germany  commissioners  to 
value  the  property  of  the  loyalists,  and  then  pay  them 
and  let  them  go.'  Let  every  one  who  refuses  to  agree  to 
this  be  disfranchised. 

"  In  every  thing  Ireland  is  the  poorest  country  in  the 
world,  and  England  the  richest.  Should  these  countries 
be  kept  apart  and  by  themselves  ?  No  ;  jumble  them 
up,  toss  them  up  together  as  you  would  a  pancake. 
There  are  twelve  thousand  police  in  Ireland,  all  Irish- 
men. I  would  establish  them  in  England,  and  have 
twelve  thousand  Englishmen  as  policemen  here.  I  would 
send  all  the  dispensary  doctors  to  England,  and  have  all 
English  doctors  here  ;  and  I  would  have  the  courts  amal- 
gamated, Irish  judges  sitting  in  England  and  EngUsh 
judges  here. 

"  One  change  in  the  direction  of  local  self-government 
I  should  approve  of :  Judges  or  Commissioners  of  Pub- 
lic Works  should  be  appointed  to  go  on  circuit  through 
the  counties,  in  order  to  save  the  expense  of  our  going 
to  London.  In  many  ways  less  centralization  would  be 
a  good  thing,  for  the  typical  Irishman  gives  his  soul  to 
the  priest  and  his  body  to  the  government  to  take  care 
of." 

AFTER    EVICTION. HERBARTSTOWN    AND    BODVKE. 

At  the  end  of  August  several  evictions  took  place  on 
the  property  of  the  O'Grady  at  Herbartstown,  in  County 
Limerick.  The  excitement  was  intense.  The  defenders 
of  one  house  poured  hot  water  and  tar  on  the  officers,  and 
tried  to  hook  them  with  a  hot  iron  rod.    "  The  resistance 


148  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

offered  on  that  occasion,"  urged  the  counsel  for  those 
who  were  arrested,  ''  was  not  offered  from  the  point  of 
view  of  its  being  a  legal  defence,  but  its  aim  and  object 
was  to  attract  public  attention  to  what  was  going  on,  and 
to  make  a  protest  against  what  those  people  might  con- 
sider an  unjust  eviction."  '  An  aged,  bedridden  woman, 
Mrs.  Moloney,  it  was  reported,  was  cruelly  turned  out  of 
her  home  and  had  to  be  carried  a  mile  or  more  through 
the  bitter  weather.  A  few  days  afterwards,  an  Irish 
member  referred  in  Parliament  to  her  death  from  the 
exposure,  and  arraigned  the  government  for  permitting 
such  brutality.  The  effect  of  these  evictions  on  English 
opinion  was  said  to  be  greater  than  that  of  all  the  speeches 
of  Mr,  Gladstone.  The  week  following  I  drove  there 
from  Limerick. 

The  road  to  Herbartstown  passes  through  excellent 
lands.  Luxuriant  hedges  prove  the  richness  of  the  soil. 
Here  and  there  a  "  boycotted  "  farm  breaks  the  succes- 
sion of  emerald  fields,  with  its  patch  of  black  rag-weeds 
and  white  thistles.  It  is  market  day  at  Hospital,  and  a 
cartful  of  pigs  jolts  past  us,  closely  followed  by  a  com- 
pany of  pig-jobbers  in  a  covered  car.  By  the  side  of  the 
road  that  leads  up  to  the  village  of  Herbartstown  is  a 
field  that  seemed  one  mass  of  weeds.  Whose  farm  is 
that  ?  I  asked  of  a  neighbor  standing  in  a  doorway. 
"  Tom  Moroney's,"  he  answered.  "  It  was  one  of  the 
best  in  the  town." 

McGuire,  a  blacksmith,  the  secretary  of  the  League, 
took  me  to  see  Mrs.  Moroney,  whose  husband  was  in 
prison  for  contempt  of  court.  Her  house  is  the  finest  in 
the  village,  a  large  double  stone  house,  one  half  of  it  a 
spirit-grocery.  All  the  furniture  had  been  moved  away, 
'  Cork  Herald,  September  8,  1887. 


IN  MUNSTER.  1 49 

except  a  few  chairs  and  tables.  The  front  door  was  for- 
tified with  a  mass  of  large  iron  weights,  and  with  an 
enormous  log  of  wood  that  was  leaning  against  it  with 
one  end  on  the  stairs. 

"  The  state  of  affairs  can  be  put  in  a  few  words,"  said 
McGuire.  "  Three  years  ago  the  landlord  agreed  to 
revalue  the  property,  and  persuaded  the  tenants  to  accept 
his  own  valuer.  Moroney  and  two  small  tenants  refused  ; 
and  one  of  them  went  into  court  and  got  a  much  larger 
reduction  than  that  allowed  by  the  valuer.  For  some 
years  the  tenants  were  allowed  fifteen  and  twenty  per 
cent,  off,  but  a  year  ago  the  agent  said  he  had  no  author- 
ity to  continue  the  reduction.  Subsequently  he  offered 
fifteen  per  cent,  all  round,  and  finally  fifteen  to  judicial 
lease-holders  and  twenty-five  per  cent,  to  the  others. 
The  tenants  demanded  thirty  and  forty  per  cent,  respec- 
tively, and  adopted  the  '  Plan.' 

"  O'Grady  served  every  one  with  writs,  and  drove 
Moroney  into  bankruptcy.  It  was  difficult  to  find  out 
Moroney's  assets,  for  after  the  '  Plan  '  was  adopted  all 
the  tenants  sold  off  their  cattle  and  put  the  money  into 
the  *  Campaign  fund.'  Moroney  and  Father  Ryan  re- 
fused to  testify  about  this  '  fund,'  and  were  imprisoned 
for  contempt  of  court.  This  house  was  sold  at  auction 
by  the  court  to  a  Mr.  Bullen  for  ^50,  and  Mrs.  Moroney 
is  now  holding  it  only  as  a  caretaker,  expecting  to  be 
evicted  at  any  moment. 

"  O'Grady  made  successive  offers  to  the  people  up  to 
the  day  of  the  evictions,  but  we  were  pledged  not  to  pay 
a  penny  of  costs,  no  matter  what  abatements  were  given. 
They  went  to  Mrs.  Ryan,  and  said  :  '  Won't  you  make 
some  settlement  if  Mrs.  Hogan  does  ? '  *  No,  I  won't, 
not  a  penny,'  she  said.     It  was  a  matter  of  principle. 


150  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

O'Grady  offered  even  to  take  payment  by  Instalments,  at 
first  of  ^5  a  year,  and  then  of  ^i  a  year,  but  nobody 
listened  to  him. 

"  There  were  thirteen  people  to  be  evicted,  most  of 
them  in  the  village,  but  all  except  the  six  actually  evicted 
were  protected  by  the  new  Land  Act.  Every  one  be- 
lieves that  if  the  town  people  had  been  attacked,  there 
would  have  been  murder  done,  for  every  house  is  barri- 
caded. 

''  Moroney  has  twenty  acres,  this  house,  and  five  small 
houses,  besides  the  fair  ground.  The  rent  is  ;^85.  The 
fair  ground  used  to  be  rented  for  ;^4o,  and  now  is  rented 
for  ;^25  ;  and  Moroney  takes  the  tolls.  This  house  was. 
built  by  Moroney  nine  years  ago,  at  a  cost  of  over  ^600, 
and  all  that  O'Grady  gave  towards  it  was  ^18.  The 
other  houses  are  very  old,  and  were  probably  built  by 
Moroney's  ancestors.  This  rent  is  enormous,  but  the 
farmers,  if  they  are  to  stand  at  all,  need  to  pay  no  rent. 

"The  evictions  were  brutal.  Poor  old  Mrs.  Moloney 
was  taken  from  her  bed  and  carried  to  her  step-brother's 
house,  at  the  risk  of  her  life." 

"  She  need  only  have  been  lifted  for  a  minute  over 
the  threshold,"  I  suggested,  "for  did  n't  O'Grady  offer 
to  take  her  back  as  caretaker?"  "Why,"  explaimed 
McGuire,  "  if  she  had  gone  back  she  would  only  have 
cost  O'Grady  a  penny  a  week,  now  he  has  to  pay  emer- 
gency men  one  or  two  pounds  a  week,  and  last  week 
there  were  hundreds  of  cattle  going  through  these  farms, 
for  they  don't  really  take  care  of  any  thing.  Our  object, 
when  the  landlord  goes  against  us,  is  to  put  him  to  as 
much  expense  as  possible.  It  is  necessary  to  punish  him. 
Besides,  we  are  afraid  of  a  caretaker  coming  to  terms 
with  the  agent." 


IN  MUNSTER.  151 

The  prospects  of  the  campaign  seem  decidedly  bright 
for  the  tenants.  Not  a  penny  will  they  pay  until  their 
terms  are  granted,  and  Moroney  and  the  evicted  people 
reinstated.  It  is  difficult  to  put  Moroney  back,  for  his 
house  has  been  sold  to  another  man.  "  That 's  O'Grady's 
look-out,"  cried  McGuire,  gleefully.  "  Now  we  have  him 
at  our  mercy.  He  is  in  a  box.  But  he  '11  get  no  rent 
from  any  tenant  till  Moroney  is  back." 

"Then  the  property  is  mortgaged  for  nearly  fifty 
thousand  pounds.  O'Grady  handled  only  ^5  or  ^6 
out  of  all  the  rental  of  Herbartstown.  The  encum- 
brancers will  have  to  foreclose,  and  then  put  the  estate 
up  for  sale,  and  there  will  be  no  one  to  buy  it  but  the 
tenants." 

"  The  result  will  be,"  I  hinted,  "  that  you  will  buy  the 
land  yourselves  pretty  cheaply  ?  " 

"  Yes,  that  is  what  we  all  expect." 

In  an  inner  room  of  a  cottage  larger  than  usual  I  found 
Mrs.  Moloney,  a  very  aged  woman,  covered  with  a  patch- 
work counterpane.  "  I  am  well  enough  to-day,"  she 
whispered.  "  That  was  a  dreadful  day.  I  did  n't 
know  what  was  happening  ;  and  now  I  can't  see  the  old 
home.  I  tried  to  make  the  rent.  Perhaps  it  would  have 
been  better  to  have  gone  back  as  caretaker.  I  am  quite 
comfortable  here.  They  do  every  thing  for  me."  As 
the  old  lady  is  now  in  the  house  where  she  was  born, 
and  where  she  can  be  better  taken  care  of  than  before, 
her  removal  the  distance  of  a  single  field  was  not  per- 
haps an  act  of  extraordinary  cruelty. 

The  saddest  thing  to  see  was  the  rank  growth  of  weeds 
in  the  fields.  The  thistles,  some  three  or  four  feet  high, 
were  seeding,  and  the  rag-weeds  were  like  a  miniature 
forest.     "  Why  do  you  let  the  land  get  in  such  a  state  ?  " 


152  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

I  asked  of  a  young  fellow.  "  Ever  since  we  sold  off  all 
our  cattle  last  November,"  he  said,  "it  has  not  been 
worth  while  to  do  any  thing." 

Twenty  miles  from  Limerick,  on  the  side  opposite  to 
Herbartstown,  is  Bodyke.  For  some  distance  fine  trees 
overarch  the  road,  and  as  soon  as  the  woods  are  passed 
the  country  opens  up  flat  and  boggy.  "  A  great  place," 
said  my  boy  driver,  "  for  catching  linnets,  finches,  and 
rabbits "  ;  and  a  moment  afterwards  we  met  a  bird- 
catcher  with  three  cages  full.  Here  and  there  small 
thatched  huts  are  almost  hidden  behind  ricks  of  hay  and 
straw  and  long  piles  of  peat.  Around  us  are  low,  long- 
rolling  hills,  flecked  with  every  color  from  orange  to 
bluish  black,  closely  spotted  with  gray  heaps  of  stone 
and  chequered  with  bare  stone  walls  ;  beyond  rise 
higher  hills,  golden  brown  against  a  silvery  sky  ;  and  in 
the  valley  are  long  peat  dikes  and  one  tiny  patch  of 
emerald  grass,  with  two  cows  and  a  few  solitary  sheep. 
Each  successive  amphitheatre  of  hills  is  more  barren  and 
more  stony  than  the  last.  Stones  lie  on  every  side  as 
thick  as  in  an  ancient  graveyard  or  a  glacier  moraine,  and 
where  the  stones  are  fewer  there  is  bog.  At  last  we 
swing  suddenly  to  the  left,  and  are  in  Bodyke,  with  its 
four  two-storied,  thatched  spirit-groceries,  and  the  white 
police  barracks  with  its  tiled  roof. 

The  feelings  of  the  striking  tenants  were  perhaps  ex- 
pressed most  intelligently  by  a  bright-looking,  middle- 
aged  woman,  as  she  sat  in  the  cosy  kitchen  of  a  neat  cot- 
tage, Mrs.  Dogherty,  a  teacher  in  the  National  School. 
"  We  have  two  farms,"  she  said,  "  and  this  house  in  the 
village.  One  of  the  farms  belongs  to  Colonel  O'Cal- 
laghan, — a  farm  of  five  and  a  half  acres,  of  which  two 
acres  are  snipe  bog,  and  the  rest  arable  land.     The  rent 


IN  MUNSTER.  153 

used  to  be  ;z£"i2,  which  we  got  reduced  by  the  court 
three  years  ago  to  ^7  xos.  Two  years  ago  we  all  asked 
for  25  per  cent,  reduction,  which  was  refused,  and  then 
we  joined  the '  Plan.'  I  and  my  husband  could  pay  the 
rent,  but  we  are  bound  in  honor  to  our  neighbors  to  pay 
nothing  till  the  Colonel  gives  in.  A  year  ago  we  were 
served  with  ejectment  papers,  and  random  evictions 
were  made,  but  we  were  not  touched.  Lately  we  have 
been  writted  again. 

"  Landlords  could  do  any  thing  they  chose  till  evic- 
tions became  difficult.  The  worst  that  has  been  said  of 
the  Colonel  is  not  bad  enough.  Every  word  of  Mr. 
Norman's  pamphlet  about  Bodyke  is  true.  The  greater 
part  of  this  parish  was  starving  in  order  to  pay  their 
rents,  and  but  for  the  Plan  of  Campaign  many  of  the 
tenants  would  not  be  living  now.  Eighteen  or  twenty 
could  have  paid  their  exorbitant  rents,  but  the  rest 
could  n't  make  the  rent  out  of  the  land,  and  got  along 
only  by  going  out  as  laborers  and  teamsters. 

''  As  it  is,  the  Colonel  will  have  to  give  in  to  our  de- 
mands, grant  us  our  abatement  of  25  per  cent.,  restore 
the  evicted  tenants,  and  refund  enough  to  make  good 
all  losses  caused  by  the  evictions." 

Eviction  used  to  be  spoken  of  as  "a  sentence  of 
death."  It  is  so  no  longer.  "  The  evicted  tenants  have 
continued  to  occupy  their  farms  ever  since  the  evictions, 
but  the  police  are  watching  them,  and  they  fear  being 
turned  out  again.  They  have  got  in  some  crops,  and  are 
supported  by  the  '  Campaign  Fund,'  by  regular  allow- 
ances from  the  League,  and  by  public  subscriptions. 
The  poorer  tenants,"  the  good  lady  continued,  "  are 
certainly  better  off  than  they  ever  were  before." 

It  is  perhaps  worth  while  noting  that  even  in  Bodyke 


154  I^  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

there  is  no  general  strike  against  paying  rent.  "  Mr, 
Stackpole,  a  son-in-law  of  the  Colonel,  is  a  large  land- 
owner here,  and  he  has  settled  with  his  tenants  for  a  re- 
duction of  15  per  cent."  Mrs.  Dogherty  holds  a  farm  of 
fifteen  or  sixteen  acres  from  Dr.  CoUinan,  of  Ennis,  and 
the  house  she  lives  in  belongs  to  the  Colonel's  sister,  and 
she  is  paying  rent  to  both. 

The  suppression  of  the  League  in  Bodyke  was  said  to 
have  stimulated  outrages.  A  week  before  my  visit  a 
baker  was  found  shot  dead  under  his  cart,  and  the  night 
before  two  hundred  feet  of  turf  was  burned  to  the 
ground,  the  woman  who  owned  it  being  suspected  of 
supplying  the  emergency  men. 

As  we  drove  back  through  the  rain  the  car-boy  sang 
unending  mournful  songs  in  a  low  voice,  "  to  kape  the 
baste  in  good  humor."  The  streaming  road  shone  like 
silver  in  the  diffused  misty  moonlight,  and  a  man  march- 
ing moodily  by  his  heavily  laden  "  assen  car"  loomed  up 
like  a  peasant  caught  by  Millet  against  a  shaft  of  sunset 
light. 


PART  III.— IN  CONNAUGHT, 

WHY    GALWAY    WANTS   HOME    RULE. 

In  the  town  of  Galway,  the  first  thing  that  struck  me 
was  that  there  was  no  longer  there  a  branch  of  the 
League.  "  There  is  no  League  in  this  part  of  the  coun- 
try," said  a  leading  Nationalist,  a  stout,  round-faced 
publican,  "for  the  people  are  so  poor  they  cannot  pay 
their  subscriptions.  They  were  willing  but  unable  to 
pay.  Most  of  the  people  in  the  town,"  he  added  signifi- 
cantly, *'  are  Liberal-Unionists." 

At  the  Bridge  Mills  the  proprietor,  Mr.  Lynch,  was 
sitting  in  the  flour-sprinkled  little  office,  surrounded  by 
a  little  company  of  enthusiastic  Nationalists.  "  This  is 
a  wool-growing  country,"  he  said,  "  with  the  greatest 
water  power  in  the  United  Kingdom.  Independently  of 
Home  Rule,  factories  would  start  up  here  of  their  own 
accord,  if  our  people  were  only  energetic  ;  under  Home 
Rule  they  certainly  would. 

"  Centralization  is  a  great  evil.  The  bill  to  construct 
tramways  in  Galway  had  to  be  passed  in  London.  To 
build  a  bridge  across  the  little  river  over  which  you  are 
sitting,  we  had  to  go  to  London  and  spend  some  fifty 
pounds  there.  If  we  had  Home  Rule  we  should  improve 
hourly.  Galway  is  the  natural  port  of  the  country  for 
ships  sailing  to  the  United  States,  and  a  Home  Rule 
Parliament  would  build  it  up  as  a  shipping  and  steamer 
station.     A  few  years  ago   the  mail  packet  subsidy  was 

155 


156  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

taken  away  from  us,  and  hundreds  have  been  starving 
ever  since.  Parliament,  too,  has  never  given  us  the  pier 
and  breakwater  we  were  promised.  Heretofore  we 
would  rather  have  been  under  a  government  of  Thugs 
than  of  the  English. 

"  As  to  the  land  question.  The  Irish  Americans,  un- 
fortunately, have  done  much  to  raise  the  price  of  land  in 
Ireland,  for  they  have  come  back  and  bought  land  at  any 
price  from  sentimental  notions.  Many  of  the  farmers  are 
in  great  distress.  I  know  a  man  named  Curran  who  lives 
six  miles  from  Clifden,  who  has  fifty  or  sixty  acres,  half 
bog.  On  this  holding  the  rent  was  twenty  pounds  in 
1849,  ^^d  has  been  raised  successively  to  twenty-seven 
pounds,  forty-five  pounds,  fifty  pounds,  and  sixty  pounds, 
and  was  lately  reduced  by  the  court  to  thirty  pounds. 

"  The  Land  Act  of  1881  was  necessary,  for  the  land 
was  exhausted  by  frequent  cropping  to  meet  exorbitant 
rents,  and  improvements  were  prevented  by  the  insecu- 
rity of  tenure.  We  admit  that  a  great  deal  of  our  poverty 
is  our  own  fault,  as  we  don't  cultivate  wisely  or  enough  ; 
but  to  this  we  were  really  forced  by  the  custom  of  rais- 
ing the  rents  for  every  improvement.  Of  course,  too, 
over-population  is  the  cause  of  much  of  the  evil,  but  how 
can  that  be  avoided  ? 

"  The  establishment  of  a  peasant  proprietary  would 
keep  money  in  the  country  that  is  now  spent  abroad. 
Lord  Clanricarde  takes  out  of  the  country  about  thirty 
thousand  pounds  a  year,  not  a  penny  of  which  ever 
comes  back. 

"  The  landlords,  moreover,  have  not  quite  so  strong  a 
claim  to  compensation  as  they  try  to  make  out.  If  a 
merchant  buys  a  certain  cargo,  he  cannot  be  insured  a 
certain  price  for  it.  Why  should  a  buyer  of  land  be  bet- 
ter off?" 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  157 

I  referred  to  the  apparent  lack  of  independence  in  the 
people,  as  shown  by  their  yielding  such  blind  obedience 
to  their  leaders.  ''  We  have  had,"  he  replied,  "  so  much 
experience  of  disunion  and  political  treachery  in  Ireland, 
that,  for  the  time,  we  have  decided  all  to  yield  to  Mr. 
Parnell.  Even  if  we  don't  approve  of  his  choice  of  a 
candidate,  we  submit  for  the  sake  of  union.  This  was 
strikingly  shown  at  the  last  election  here.  We  would  not 
have  it  said  that  Galway  caused  a  split  in  the  party. 
Many  of  our  M.  P.'s  are  able  men  but  unscrupulous,  and 
with  patriotism  only  skin-deep,  but  if  Mr.  Parnell  sent 
one  of  them  down  here  we  would  elect  him  because  he 
would  serve  our  purpose." 

"  Would  the  Protestant  minority  have  fair  play  under 
Home  Rule  ?" 

"  The  influence  of  the  priests,  you  must  remember,  is 
not  what  it  was.  Except  Dr.  Croke  and  Dr.  Nulty, 
who  sided  with  the  people,  the  bishops  and  almost  all 
the  priests  held  out  against  the  National  movement 
until  they  saw  there  was  danger  of  the  people  falling 
away  from  them  ["  Politically,"  interjected  Sullivan]  ; 
then  they  fell  in,  and  are  now  to  the  front  again." 

"  They  have  been  of  marvellous  service  to  the  cause," 
Sullivan  remarked  again. 

"  Yes,"  continued  Lynch,  "  but  these  facts  show  how 
independent  the  people  have  become,  for  in  old  times 
the  priests  used  to  drive  the  people  before  them  to  the 
polls. 

"  In  Galway  again,  there  are  about  sixteen  Catholics  to 
one  of  any  other  denomination  ;  yet  of  the  twenty-four 
members  of  the  corporation  ten  are  Protestants,  and  the 
chairman  is  a  Protestant.  On  the  Harbor  Board  the 
majority  of  the  members  and  the  chairman  are    Protes- 


158  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

tants.  On  the  Poor-Law  Board  the  chairman  is  Catholic, 
but  three  or  four  of  the  elected  members  are  Protestants. 
The  Poor-Rate  Collector  is  a  Protestant,  though  elected 
by  Catholics,  and  so  are  the  Engineer  of  the  Harbor 
Board,  the  Town  Steward,  and  the  Engineer  for  the 
Town.  A  majority  of  the  grand  jury  are  Catholics,  for  the 
landlords  here  are  Catholics. 

"  In  fine,  I  believe  that  if  we  had  Home  Rule  to- 
morrow, as  I  pray  God  we  may,  any  bishop  or  priest  who 
stood  up  for  ascendancy  would  have  short  shrift." 

The  opinion  of  a  clockmaker  in  Galway  may  be  worth 
quoting  : 

"  I  firmly  believe,"  he  said,  "  that  Home  Rule  would 
injure  me  at  first,  but  that  in  twenty,  fifty,  or  a  hundred 
years  my  business  would  be  benefited.  Within  a  few 
years  a  farmer  in  the  west  of  Ireland  was  afraid  to  have 
a  clock  in  his  house,  because  if  the  agent  came  round 
and  saw  it,  he  would  probably  raise  the  rent." 

WALKING    IN    CONNEMARA. 

From  Galway  I  walked  along  the  coast  to  Clifden.  A 
few  miles  from  Galway  is  Barna,  a  row  of  a  dozen  houses, 
huts  with  thatched  roofs,  and  three  two-story,  slated 
houses  by  the  side  of  the  road.  In  one  of  the  latter 
lived  James  Hickey,  whose  story  seemed  to  explain  the 
violence  of  so  many  Irish  patriots.  Hickey  went  to 
America  and  enlisted  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil 
war.  He  was  twice  wounded,  but  not  mustered  out  till 
the  war  was  over.  His  regiment  was  the  Ninth  Massachu- 
setts Volunteers,  the  "  Irish  Brigade  "  ;  and  with  several 
other  old  comrades  he  took  part  in  the  Canadian  risinpj, 
and  being  in  the  first  detachment  that  crossed  Niagara,  wa ; 
taken,  and  spent  many  years  in  Dartmouth  Prison. 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 59 

"  My  father  rented  this  strip  of  land  of  Lord  Camp- 
bell and  Stratheden,  and  built  these  three  stone  houses, 
each  with  eight  rooms,  and  well  slated.  Nine  or  ten 
years  ago  the  price  of  cattle  fell,  and  my  father  was  then 
evicted  out  of  one  house,  but  kept  this  and  the  next  one, 
which  he  let  as  a  barracks  to  the  constabulary.  If  it  had 
not  been  for  my  wife  and  children,  I  would  then  have 
gone  to  America.  As  it  was  I  went  to  London  to  see 
the  landlord,  but  he  was  never  at  home  to  me.  I  found 
myself  alone  in  London,  without  five  shillings  in  my 
pocket  ;  it  was  a  blue  look-out,  but  I  found  a  friend  in 
T.  P.  O'Connor,  M.  P.  for  Galway,  whom  I  had  helped 
in  his  election  ;  for  I  have  considerable  influence  with 
the  people  here,  as  I  speak  equally  well  English  and 
Irish.  T.  P.  O'Connor  got  me  a  situation  in  London, 
and  there  I  stayed  till  I  heard  of  my  father's  death.  I 
came  back  at  once,  knowing  little  of  my  father's  affairs. 
He  used  to  keep  things  in  a  slovenly  way,  and  it  was  only 
from  the  agent  that  I  found  out  he  owed  two  and  a  half 
years'  rent.  I  had  no  money  in  the  house  at  the  time, 
and  went  to  see  the  agent.  I  stood  outside  the  rail  in 
his  office  and  told  him  '  it  can  be  paid,  but  I  want  time.' 
*  Pooh,  pooh  ! '  he  said  ;  '  the  landlord  can't  give  you  any 
time  ;  he  must  get  the  money.'  '  See  here,'  said  I,  '  the 
old  times  are  gone.  There  's  no  dark  spot  now  but  a 
strong  light  can  be  thrown  on  it  as  never  before,  and  if 
you  squeeze  me  I  '11  squeal '  '  When  will  you  pay  me  ? ' 
he  asked.  '  I  expect  to  sell  this  and  that,'  I  said.  '  I  '11 
sell  every  stick  I  have  till  I  get  out  of  this  mess  '  ;  and 
I  gave  him  ^38  is.  It  was  then  November,  1883,  and 
that  exhausted  my  resources.  I  paid  him  a  pound  later, 
and  ^10  more  in  18S6,  and  then  was  at  the  end  of  my 
tether.     I  now  owep^42,  about  two  and  a  half  vears'  rent. 


l6o  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  I  went  to  him  and  said  :  '  I  have  no  money  now,  but 
I  own  the  police  barracks,  for  which  I  get  ;Q\2  a  year. 
At  twelve  years'  purchase  that  is  worth  nearly  ^150. 
Let  me  mortgage  that  to  you  as  security,  and  redeem 
when  I  can.'  He  paused  a  bit,  and  then  said:  'You  have 
no  lease  for  it,'  he  said.  'Whose  fault  is  that  ?'  cried  I. 
'  The  land  the  barracks  is  on  is  Lord  Campbell's,  but 
the  building  itself  is  mine.  If  I  can  turn  over  the  bar- 
racks to  him  so  that  he  can  secure  his  ^^42  off  it,  what  's 
the  harm  ? '  Legally,  perhaps,  he  is  owner  and  I  am 
tenant  at  will,  but  my  father  built  the  houses.  Lord 
Campbell  never  gave  a  shovel  of  sand  towards  building 
it,  nor  a  stick  of  timber,  nor  a  single  slate.  Let  him 
mortgage  it  and  hold  it  as  security  only.  I  will  redeem 
it'  The  clerk  then  drew  up  a  paper,  which  I  signed  ; 
and  the  next  day  the  mean  fellow  collected  a  year's  rent 
then  due  on  the  barracks,  and  immediately  evicted  me 
out  of  it,  the  constables  being  all  turned  out  and  at  once 
put  back  again. 

"  He  evicted  me  out  of  every  thing  except  the  house  I 
am  now  in,  and  did  not  leave  me  land  enough  *  to  sod  a 
lark  in,'  and  in  that  land  there  I  have  invested  three 
times  its  fee-simple  value. 

"  The  landlord  now  has  possession  of  the  barracks 
and  the  land,  though  I  could  redeem  it  with  only  ^42, 
and  I  am  left  with  only  this  house  and  a  few  potato 
patches, — and  even  for  these  I  am  writted  for  evict- 
ment.  While  I  was  away,  too,  and  the  old  man  was  sick, 
every  thing  fell  into  disrepair,  and  it  would  take  ^20  to 
put  things  in  order  again.  As  to  the  houses  themselves, 
they  are  solid  granite,  as  solid  as  Hell  Gate  in  New  York 
Sound  before  they  blew  it  up. 

"  Here  the  rent  is  not  the  grievance,  though  the  time 


m  CONNAUGHT. 


i6i 


will  come,  please  God,  when  we  shall  pay  no  rent.  In 
fact  we  pay  the  rent  now  with  as  good  grace  as  we  can, 
though  we  think  it  an  injustice. 

"  The  land  acts  have  done  some  good,  but  your  im- 
provements you  sacrifice  even  now  if  you  go  out  for  non- 
payment of  rent,  and  if  you  let  six  months  pass  after  an 
eviction  without  paying,  you  lose  all  claim  on  the  land. 
When  I  could  n't  hold  the  land,  how  could  I  redeem  it  m 
six  months,  after  being  still  further  impoverished  ?  The 
period  of  redemption  should  obviously  be  extended.' 

Hickey  led  me  out  into  a  field  behind  the  house,  a 
long,  green  field  sloping  to  the  sea.     Here  and  there  are 
heaps  of  broken  blocks  of  granite,  like  the  debris  of  a 
glacier  moraine.     A  curving  granite  pier  jutted  out  mto 
the  blue  water  and  made  a  tiny  harbor.     Drawn  up  on 
the  beach  were  ten  or  a  dozen  "  corraghs,"  canoes  made 
of  tarred  sail-cloth  nailed  over  a  bare  wooden  frame,  and 
beyond  the  pier  were  five  or  six  more.     Hickey  seemed 
strongly  moved,  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears.     "  About 
1S59,"  he  said  gently,  "the  place  we  are  walkmg  on  was 
a  prosperous  fishing  village,  named  Barna,  m  the  county 
and  town  of  Galway.     You  are  now  treadmg  on  ruined 
hearth-stones.     There  were  then  thirty-five  or  forty  fish- 
ing-boats in  this  little  harbor,  instead  of  three.     Barna, 
as  it  was,  had  nearly  six  hundred  inhabitants.     These 
people  lived  here  in  a  rude  way,  well  in  good  times,  and 
bearing  hard  times  bravely,-a  typical  fishing  community. 
"  Where  we  are  now  standing  there  was  a  solid  block 
of  houses.     The  present  village  was  only  the  first  row  of 
the  old  Barna,  and  from  that  to  the  beach  were  other 
rows,  with  little  lanes  leading  down  to  the  water's  edge. 
The  rent  ranged  from  15^.  to  ^os.  a  house,  and  there  were 
over  forty  houses. 


1 62  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"The  Lord  Campbell  of  that  day  thought  it  would  be 
a  good  idea  to  have  bathing-houses  here,  and  an  open 
way  to  the  sea.  He  ruthlessly  exterminated  the  whole 
community,  and  spent  enormous  sums  in  turning  the 
village  into  the  field  you  see. 

"There  were  little  gardens  to  the  houses,  surrounded 
by  stone  walls  :  they  took  the  earth  from  the  gardens, 
and  filled  in  the  hollows  with  the  ruins  of  the  houses  and 
the  garden  walls,  and  then  covered  all  snugly  over  with 
the  soil.  Do  you  see  those  brown  spots  ?  The  grass 
does  n't  grow  there,  for  just  beneath  the  surface  is  one  of 
the  sunken  stones  of  the  buried  village. 

"  The  Czar  of  Russia  gives  subsistence  to  those  he 
transports  to  Siberia,  but  the  children  and  the  infirm  and 
the  old  people  of  Barna  were  sent  into  the  workhouse, 
and  the  rest  wandered  here  and  there  over  the  earth. 
God  knows  where  some  of  them  went  to,  for  I  don't. 
In  Second  and  Third  streets,  and  in  Athens  Street, 
South  Boston,  there  used  to  be  a  little  colony  of  these 
people.     Perhaps  some  of  them  may  be  there  still. 

"  The  rental  of  the  old  village  was  forty  pounds  or 
more  a  year.  After  all  those  expensive  operations  this 
field  was  let  for  ^2  a  year.  Now  it  is  divided  between 
two  tenants  who  pay  altogether  about  ^8.  Assign  what 
motive  you  like  to  this  action  of  Lord  Campbell's,  there 
is  something  diabolical  about  it.  I  used  to  amuse  my- 
self by  observing  the  conduct  in  Parliament  of  the  pres- 
ent Lord  Campbell,  who  is  persecuting  me.  Whenever 
he  opened  his  mouth — he  has  n't  now  for  some  time — it 
was  to  speak  about  the  misery  of  the  people  under  the 
Turks.  He  might  have  found,  I  used  to  think,  some 
misery  nearer  home." 

With  such  an  experience  ever  in  his  heart,  it  is  only 


IN-  CONNAUGHT.  1 63 

natural  that  Hickey  should  feel  strongly,  but  the  modera- 
tion with  which  he  considers  practical  questions  is  sig- 
nificant. Let  me  recall  one  conversation  as  we  walked 
along  the  Galway  road  :  ''  In  case  of  war  between  Eng- 
land and  any  other  power,  Ireland  would  say  to  England  : 

'  Give   us    Home    Rule,    or '     A  large  measure    of 

Home  Rule,  that  would  satisfy  the  majority  of  my  coun- 
trymen, I  would  take  as  a  finality,  and  not,  in  any  sense, 
as  an  instalment  merely  or  an  entering  wedge.  Then,  if 
it  ever  came  in  my  power  to  effect  separation,  so  long  as 
the  government  took  no  unfair  advantage  and  kept  the 
agreement,  I  would  not  break  it  myself,  though  personally 
I  might  wish  for  better  terms. 

"  I  should  be  willing  to  have  all  bills  of  an  imperial 
complexion  settled  finally  at  Westminster,  but  all  other 
bills  relating  to  Ireland  should  be  dealt  with  by  a  Parlia- 
ment at  Dublin.  The  Irish  Parliament  should  send  over 
to  England  what  consideration  is  settled  on  as  Ireland's 
share  of  the  imperial  expenses,  and  the  rest  of  the  rev- 
enue they  should  collect  and  expend  as  they  think  best 
for  the  interests  of  Ireland. 

"  One  crux  will  be  the  disposition  of  the  Irish  constab- 
ulary. They  are  picked  men.  I  don't  believe  you  can 
find  their  match  in  the  world.  But  they  are  the  tools  of 
the  government ;  they  are  spies,  taking  note  of  your  go- 
ing out  and  your  coming  in,  and  are  looked  upon  by 
their  fellow-countrymen  as  renegades.  If  we  had  Home 
Rule,  and  these  men  remained  under  imperial  control, 
they  would  be  a  wedge  through  the  heart  of  Ireland  for 
England  to  strike.  We  should  have  our  enemies  at  our 
doors  and  be  unable  to  dismiss  them.  Such  a  state  of 
things  would  be  intolerable  in  any  country. 

"  I   would    suggest    turning   them    into    militia,    each 


164  IN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

county  having  a  regiment,  to  supplement  the  imperial 
army  if  called  upon. 

"  As  policemen  the  constabulary  are  not  needed. 
Their  numbers  are  absurd.  In  Barna,  a  policeman,  un- 
less he  is  drunk,  does  n't  lay  his  hands  on  a  man's 
shoulder  from  one  year's  end  to  another.  There  has 
never  been  a  rape  here,  and  not  a  murder  in  my 
recollection.  I  never  knew  a  row  here,  and  there  has  n't 
been  a  theft  for  years.  I  never  lock  my  back  door,  and  my 
front  door  very  seldom.  I  don't  believe  there  are  three 
locks  in  the  village.  And  yet  in  Barna  there  is  one  bar- 
racks and  five  constables  ;  at  Salthill,  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood,  another ;  in  Spiddal,  five  miles  to  the 
west,  a  third,  with  an  inspector,  two  sergeants,  and  eigh- 
teen or  twenty  rank  and  file  ;  at  Moycullen,  six  miles  to 
the  northwest,  a  fourth  ;  a  fifth,  two  miles  and  a  half  off 
along  another  road  ;  a  sixth,  five  miles  off  in  a  different 
direction  ;  and  at  intermediate  places  there  are  iron  huts, 
which  are  occupied  by  details  from  different  barracks 
'  on  detached  service,'  as  I  used  to  say.  This  shows  the 
network  of  police  in  Ireland.  What  do  we  want  with  so 
many  ? 

"  At  first,  even  with  Home  Rule,  all  will  not  be  satis- 
fied. Underlying  all  there  will  be  a  discontented  mass 
of  laborers  ;  but  the  rent  saved  will  soon  become  a  fund 
for  their  employment.  Till  then  with  the  laborers  it 
will  be  a  case  of  '  Live  horse  to  get  grass,'  but  they  will 
soon  be  benefited  by  the  reduction  of  rents.  I  am  pay- 
ing twenty-three  pounds  odd  for  rent.  If  on  my  way  to 
Galway  I  got  the  news  to-morrow  that  I  was  absolved 
from  all  rent  in  scecula  scBcidoriwi,  I  should  say  :  '  Now  I 
will  turn  that  field  there  to  better  use,  and  I  will  improve 
my  house.     Here  Mick,  I  want  you  to  go  right  out  with 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 65 

Pat  and  Murphy,  and  get  to  Avork  at  my  house  and  gar- 
den.' 

"  Many  laborers  will  be  employed  at  once,  and  in  nine 
or  ten  years,  when  some  capital  has  accumulated,  there 
will  be  room  for  all  the  present  laborers  and  for  many 
more  from  America,  for  even  now,  every  spring  and 
every  harvest  the  farmers  have  to  wait  for  laborers." 

Of  boycotting  he  said  :  "  It  is  often  the  only  defence 
left  the  people,  and,  if  used  with  proper  discrimination, 
is  effective.  It  may  be  abused,  but  what  is  there  that 
is  n't?" 

We  came  into  the  townland  of  Furbough.  "  All  this," 
said  Hickey,  "  is  the  property  of  Colonel  John  A.  Daly, 
whose  family  name  was  Blake.  Here  even,  after  the 
passage  of  the  first  Land  Act,  the  tenants  were  most  griev- 
ously oppressed.  They  not  only  paid  rack-rents,  poor- 
rates,  and  taxes,  but  also  tithes,  and  in  addition  they  had 
to  give  eight  or  nine  days'  labor  about  the  Great  House  at 
sixpence  a  day  in  winter,  and  eightpence  a  day  in  sum- 
mer. There  was  also  a  certain  amount  of  '  duty  work ' 
required  of  them,  a  survival  from  the  feudal  times. 
Moreover,  every  house  had  to  cut  a  day's  turf. 

"  Some  five  years  ago,  on  this  same  estate,  there  was  a 
man,  Peter  Kelly,  now  living  in  Galway, — a  good  fellow 
he  was,  but  if  you  ride  on  his  back,  don't  spur  him,  or 
he  '11  throw  you.  The  bailiff  summoned  him  to  cut  turf 
the  next  day.  He  told  the  bailiff  to  come  some  other 
day,  as  he  was  busy.  Some  'drivers,'  other  bailiffs,  so- 
called  from  their  occupation,  went  down  and  seized  his 
cow  to  impound  it  the  very  next  day,  and  drove  it  so 
carelessly  that  it  fell  and  broke  its  legs.  Kelly  told  me 
the  cow  was  worth  fifteen  pounds,  and  he  never  got  any 
compensation.  If  he  had  said  much  more  to  the  bailiff, 
he  would  have  lost  his  house  as  well." 


1 66  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

In  a  few  minutes  a  man  came  driving  along  the  road 
from  Gahvay  in  an  "■  assen  car."  It  was  this  very  same 
Peter  Kelly.  ''  Eight  days'  duty  work  I  had,"  said  he 
when  I  asked  him.  "  Divil  a  copper  he  paid  me  for  my 
cow." 

"  There  was  another  rule  on  the  estates  about  here," 
said  Hickey,  "  a  harsh  one,  you  will  admit.  During  the 
famine  time  and  the  subsequent  years  when  a  large  num- 
ber of  tenants  were  evicted,  the  other  tenants  were  strictly 
forbidden  to  harbor  or  give  any  shelter  to  the  evicted 
people.  The  reason  was  that  the  landlord  paid  half  the 
poor-rate,  and  he  was  afraid  that  if  these  poor  people 
stayed  here  they  would  come  on  the  Union." 

To  the  left  of  the  road  I  noticed  a  little  memorial 
chapel,  a  sort  of  mausoleum.  "  An  uncle  of  Mr.  Daly 
acted  as  his  agent  here.  One  day  some  one  put  day- 
light through  him,  near  Loughrea,  and  now  he  lies  there 
in  that  kennel.  He  was  so  detested  that  one  tenant  only 
went  to  the  funeral,  and  he  went  from  motives  of  policy. 
I  met  the  procession  on  its  way  here,  and,  as  it  passed  by, 
I  did  not  touch  my  hat." 

On  either  side  of  the  road  are  little  holdings.  The 
country  is  so  rocky  and  stony  that  there  is  scarcely  an 
acre  not  surrounded  by  a  rude  stone  wall.  When  you 
look  at  a  gradually  sloping  hillside  you  see  no  green, 
but  one  wall  seems  to  rise  on  top  of  another,  so  as  to 
present  the  appearance  of  a  continuous  mass  of  stones. 
The  walls  of  the  little  huts  are  built  as  loosely  as  the 
walls  by  the  roadside,  and  at  a  first  glance  are  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable. Now  and  then  I  knocked  at  a  door  and, 
with  Hickey  acting  as  interpreter,  for  the  people  gener- 
ally speak  nothing  but  Irish,  asked  a  few  questions,  which 
were  promptly  and  amiably  answered.     Anthony  Con- 


IN  CONN  AUGHT.  1 6/ 

cannon  is  a  tenant  of  Mr.  Marcus  Lynch.  He  has 
twenty-four  acres,  four  of  which  he  used  to  sow  with 
potatoes,  but  cannot  now  for  want  of  money  to  buy  seed. 
The  rent  is  ;^2  2,  having  been  reduced  in  1881  from  ^26. 
The  day  before  he  had  gone  to  the  office  to  pay  some  ar- 
rears, and  looked  in  vain  for  a  reduction.  He  has  another 
farm  of  two  acres  or  so,  which  he  holds  from  the  same 
landlord  on  a  grazing  lease,  for  three  pounds  and  ten 
shillings.  The  rent  has  not  been  reduced  for  twenty 
years,  and  the  holding  is  not  within  the  Land  Act.  For 
a  third  plot  he  pays  eight  pounds,  which  has  been  re- 
duced from  eleven.  Part  of  the  home  farm  is  often 
flooded  by  the  tide,  and  after  the  passage  of  the  Land 
Act  the  landlord  for  the  first  time  claimed  the  black- 
weed,  which  grows  between  high-  and  low-water  mark,  as 
well  as  what  washes  against  the  sea  wall.  "  I  keep  three 
cows  and  four  or  five  calves,"  he  said,  "  besides  a  mare 
and  a  foal.  I  grow  turnips,  potatoes,  and  mangels.  The 
potatoes  are  below  the  average,  and  the  turnips  and 
mangels  have  failed  entirely.  I  am  sure  I  won't  make 
any  rent  this  year."  The  black-weed,  according  to 
Hickey,  had  always  been  considered  the  property  of  the 
tenant ;  and  the  drift-weed,  which  the  landlords  have  gen- 
erally claimed,  Hickey  argued  was  really  public  property. 
The  way  the  landlords  deprive  the  tenants  of  the  sea- 
weed is  by  closing  the  roads  to  the  shore.  "  The  land- 
lords have  so  many  ways  of  getting  round  any  law,  they 
will  outflank  you,"  he  sighed,  "  in  spite  of  the  Devil." 

Here  is  Edward  Toole's  holding.  He  has  ten  acres. 
The  rent  has  been  reduced  by  agreement  out  of  court 
from  fourteen  to  twelve  pounds.  The  poor-rate  is  thirty 
shillings,  and  the  taxes  eighteen  shillings,  due  twice  a 
year.     The  house,  a  two-storied  granite  house,  was  built 


1 68  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

by  Costello,  Mrs.  Toole's  father.  A  little  bit  of  land  a 
quarter  of  an  acre,  they  were  manuring  with  sea-weed  for 
a  potato  patch,  but  in  the  whole  field  there  did  not  seem 
to  be  four  square  yards  free  from  large  stones  or  rock. 

We  were  now  passing  the  Furbough  National  School,  a 
neat  stone  building  like  all  the  frequent  schoolhouses  in 
this  part  of  the  country,  and  there  we  took  up  John  R. 
Curtin,  the  schoolmaster.  "  Generally,"  he  said,  "  the 
children  in  Ireland  leave  school  about  the  lower-fifth 
form,  and  many  in  the  country  from  the  third  and  fourth 
forms,  when  they  are  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  old. 
What  they  know  then  is  not  much,  and  is  soon  forgotten. 
The  attendance  in  the  country  is  not  apt  to  be  con- 
tinuous after  the  age  of  seven.  The  busy  seasons  are 
spring,  summer,  and  early  autumn,  for  there  's  turf- 
cutting  in  summer,  sea- weed  gathering  in  spring,  and  then 
the  harvest,  and  at  these  times  all  except  the  very  young 
children  are  off. 

"We  schoolmasters  want  to  get  'compulsory  educa- 
tion,' but  this  is  barred  by  the  religious  difficulty. 

"  If  the  children  could  be  kept  at  school  till  they  had 
passed  through  the  senior  grade  of  the  sixth  form,  they 
would  be  competent  to  fill  a  clerical  position  anywhere. 
But  even  the  standard  of  the  lower  fifth  is  high  enough 
for  practical  purposes.  In  English,  they  have  to  be 
familiar  with  the  fifth-standard  reader,  though  in  an  Irish- 
speaking  community  like  ours  this  hope  is  seldom  real- 
ized ;  in  book-keeping,  they  go  as  far  as  double  entry, 
cash  accounts,  and  personal  accounts  ;  in  geography,  they 
have  to  know  well  the  geography  of  Ireland,  the  map  of 
Europe,  and  the  outlines  of  the  continents  ;  in  agricul- 
ture, which  is  taught  in  the  rural  schools,  we  study  the 
natures  of  the  crops,  the  mode  of  cultivation,  and  some- 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 69 

thing  about  the  chemistry  of  the  soil.  If  we  only  had  a 
little  garden  attached  to  the  schoolhouse,  for  purposes  of 
practical  illustration,  this  course  would  be  of  the  greatest 
value,' 

As  twilight  came  on,  these  newly  found  friends  left 
me,  after  quoting  to  my  amusement  a  Celtic  curse,  com- 
mon among  the  people,  who,  many  of  them,  still  believe 
in  the  "  evil  eye  "  :  "  May  the  eye  of  an  evil  man  never 
rest  on  you,  nor  the  eye  of  the  dearly  beloved  Son  of 
God  !  " 

A  few  miles  beyond  Spiddal,  a  squalid  little  fishing 
village,  I  called  on  the  parish  priest.  Father  Hosty. 
"That  wretched  land,"  said  he,  pointing  to  a  neighbor- 
ing field,  "  is  measured  without  counting  the  stones,  and, 
till  lately,  was  paying  thirty  shillings  an  acre.  It  is  now 
held  under  judicial  leases  for  from  ten  to  twenty  shil- 
lings. One  reason  for  the  high  rent  is,  that  the  right  to 
the  sea-weed  is  included. 

"  Oats  are  a  perfect  failure  this  year,  but,  fortunately, 
the  potatoes  are  fair.  There  is  nothing  between  the 
people  and  a  famine  but  those  little  bulbs. 

''I  would  n't  call  this  place  of  mine  'a  congested 
district,'  because  there  is  plenty  of  room,  and  the  people 
could  live  well  enough  by  fishing.  There  is,  however, 
no  fishing  here  at  all,  for  there  are  no  boats,  and  no  nets. 
The  fish  in  the  bay  are  caught  chiefly  by  a  company 
which  sends  them  direct  to  Dublin. 

"  These  houses  are  very  poor-looking,  but  the  people 
are  quite  contented,  and  are  willing  enough  to  go  on 
living  on  potatoes.  They  don't  care  to  go  to  America, 
though  we  never  say  a  word  to  dissuade  them." 

He  took  me  into  the  school  near  by,  and  I  heard  the 
barefooted  children,  boys  and  girls,  but  the  girls  best, 


I/O  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

read  beautifully,  and  parse  well.  "Along  this  road," 
continued  the  good  father,  ''  you  will  find  as  fine  schools 
as  there  are  anywhere.  The  younger  generation  are 
better  educated  and  more  independent  than  the  old,  and 
can  take  their  place  with  any  people  in  the  world." 

Near  Castlerea,  the  keeper  of  the  public-house,  one 
Taylor,  joined  me  and  piloted  me  across  a  boggy  moun- 
tain to  the  main  road.  "  I  have  been  many  years  in 
America,"  he  said,  *'  and  find  nowhere  more  liberty  than 
here.  The  rent  is  not  the  main  thing  ;  the  rent  is  not 
so  much,  the  taxes  will  soon  be  more,  and,  since  this 
agitation  began,  the  taxes  have  risen  enormously. 

"  I  have  a  piece  of  land  for  which  no  rent  has  been 
paid  for  seven  years.  The  previous  tenant  went  to 
America,  and  then  a  man  came  in  who  sublet  half  to  me. 
I  paid  him  one  year's  rent,  and  won't  pay  him  any  more 
till  he  pays  the  landlord. 

"  The  League,  in  my  opinion,  has  ruined  twenty  to  one 
whom  it  has  benefited.  How  many  has  it  driven  away 
who  might  have  been  in  their  little  houses  to-day  ?  If 
we  are  once  put  out  of  a  place  we  cannot  get  another, 
and  cannot  get  the  smallest  room  in  a  village  without 
paying  rent  for  it. 

"  I  see  as  much  privilege  and  liberty  in  Ireland  as  ever 
I  saw  anywhere,  and  I  have  been  sixteen  years  in  Amer- 
ica. The  League  may  have  done  some  good  in  other 
parts  of  the  country,  but  they  have  done  none  in  Galway. 

"  I  tell  you  the  farmers  will  always  have  to  work  them- 
selves and  cannot  employ  many  laborers,  but  I  knew 
landlords  who  used  to  employ  as  many  as  fifty  or  a  hun- 
dred laborers,  carpenters,  blacksmiths,  and  harness- 
makers,  but  they  cannot  afford  to  do  so  now. 

"The  poorest  people,  the  laborers,  are  the  sufferers  by 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  17I 

the  agitation,  and  even  under  Home  Rule  the  rich  will 
be  the  best  off,  but  the  poorest  will  be  just  as  poor." 

Miles  and  miles  the  road  continued  bounded  by  bogs 
on  either  side  ;  not  a  soul,  not  a  beast  was  to  be  seen. 
Not  even  a  dwelling  of  any  sort  was  visible,  till  Scrieb 
Lodge  came  in  sight,  a  fishing  lodge, — a  deserted-look- 
ing square  white  house  by  the  side  of  a  wide,  straggling 
morass,  dotted  with  peaty  islands,  and  encircled  by  low 
brown  hills,  with  the  jagged  Connemara  '*  Twelve  Pins  " 
in  the  distance.  It  recalled  the  dismal  horrors  of  the 
"  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,"  and  I  hurried  on  as  the 
evening  was  closing  in  quickly. 

From  time  to  time  I  knocked  at  a  cottage,  to  ask 
leave  to  spend  the  night,  but  I  was  either  refused  or  un- 
able to  make  myself  understood  ;  in  two  of  the  cottages 
the  cows  were  in  the  kitchen.  At  last  I  found  an  inn, 
where  a  couple  of  constables  sat  and  talked  till  midnight. 
"We  don't  trouble  ourselves  about  Home  Rule,"  they 
remarked,  "  for  we  shall  then  be  surely  pensioned  off. 
As  to  the  poverty  of  the  people,  that  is  greatly  exaggera- 
ted. You  often  see  a  man  living  in  a  hut  like  a  cow-shed, 
and  find  that  he  has  two  or  three  hundred  pounds  in  the 
bank.     These  habits  have  come  down  from  earlier  times." 

The  next  day  a  barefooted  man,  in  a  red-knitted  cap, 
started  me  on  the  road  to  Cashel.  He  has  a  small  farm. 
"  The  rent  is  fair,  the  oats  is  all  dried  up,  but  the  pota- 
toes are  good,  and  that  's  the  main  thing." 

Two  men,  a  woman,  and  a  boy  passed  me,  carrying 
enormous  bales  of  hay  on  their  backs,  and,  later,  the 
cart  of  a  Galway  trader,  who  furnishes  the  people  with 
groceries,  taking  eggs  in  payment.  Near  a  tiny  hamlet  a 
couple  of  laborers,  sitting  smoking  on  a  rock,  asked  for 
news,  saying  there  was  a  report  that  a  head  constable 


172  JN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

had  been  shot  at  Lisdoonvarna.  In  a  cottage  on  a 
mountain  side  at  Shanadonel,  I  got  some  milk  and  eggs. 
Joyce,  his  mother,  and  four  children  were  in  the  kitchen, 
all  barefooted,  occasionally  tickling  with  their  toes  the 
pigs  that  were  playing  with  "  a  little  cur  dog  "  and  two 
cats  on  the  earthen  floor.  The  only  furniture  consisted 
of  a  rough  wooden  table,  a  couple  of  home-made  chairs, 
and  two  pictures  on  the  wall,  supplements  of  old  Christ- 
mas Graphics.  Joyce  owns  a  hundred  or  more  acres, 
how  many  he  does  n't  know,  and  pays  twelve  pounds  for 
it.  This  is  too  much,  he  thought.  ''  If  we  had  a  good 
land  bill,"  said  he,  "  we  would  not  care  about  Home 
Rule.  Our  people  ask  for  much  more  than  they  expect 
to  get." 

Along  a  path  invisible  to  my  eyes,  he  led  me  across 
several  miles  of  bogs.  A  stone  here,  a  footprint  there 
were  all  the  signs  of  travel.  We  sank  frequently  ankle- 
deep,  but  Joyce,  like  a  satyr,  leaped  on  before,  and  with 
his  bare  toes  seizing  the  bog,  shook  the  mountain  side 
while  he  shouted  :  "  Don't  fear  ;  it  is  quite  firm  and 
strong."  Along  this  path  he  has  driven  cattle  to  Galway 
fair,  more  than  forty  miles'  distance.  Such  are  some  of 
the  inconveniences  of  life  in  central  Galway. 

The  village  of  Cashel  seemed  to  consist  of  a  barracks, 
a  national  school,  and  a  public-house.  The  keeper  of 
the  latter  is  Mr.  J.  J.  O'Loghlen,  a  poor-law  guardian. 
This  is  in  the  notorious  Clifden  Union,  one  of  the  six 
bankrupt  unions  which  Mr.  Morley,  when  in  office,  tried 
to  relieve  by  a  grant  of  money,  and  succeeded  only  in 
plunging  into  deeper  debt.  "  The  poor-rate  here,"  said 
O'Loghlen,  "  is  very  high — four  shillings  in  the  pound. 
My  valuation  is  ninety  pounds,  and  I  pay  twenty  pounds' 
poor-rate.     One  reason  is,  that  so  many  of  our  people 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 73 

have  gone  to  America,  leaving  behind  them  the  poor  old 
people,  who  stick  to  their  homes  long  after  they  have 
ceased  to  make  them  pay. 

"  Two  old  men  died  here  a  few  days  ago  who  had 
been  for  several  years  receiving  out-door  relief,  and  the 
Union  had  to  pay  ten  shillings  for  each  funeral.  One, 
Colroy,  had  a  son  who  was  a  captain  of  one  of  the  Black 
Ball  ships,  sailing  to  Australia,  which  was  lost  at  sea  a 
few  years  ago  with  all  on  board.  The  other  old  man  saw 
his  children  go  away  to  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  they 
never  sent  him  back  a  penny. 

"  There  are  too  many  doctors  employed  by  the  Unions, 
five  here  where  two  would  do,  and  we  have  to  keep  a 
doctor  in  Innisbofin  Island,  which  owes  us  now  over  five 
hundred  pounds,  for  we  cannot  collect  any  rates  from 
the  people. 

''  In  the  matter  of  rents  we  are  not  so  badly  off  as 
many  places,  and  there  is  here  no  disturbance  ;  but  the 
land  is  not  worth  a  farthing  an  acre.  Payment  is  made 
for  the  land  by  the  holding  and  not  by  the  acreage.  So 
I  don't  know  how  much  I  have. 

'*  The  landlord,  Mr.  R.  Berridge,  lives  in  London,  and 
leaves  every  thing  to  the  discretion  of  his  agent,  Robin- 
son, who  has  a  bad  name  but  is  not  a  bad  man.  Many 
people  have  been  evicted  at  different  times,  but  they  are 
all  living  on  their  holdings  as  caretakers." 

''  It  is  through  the  shopkeepers  giving  credit  to  the 
people  that  the  landlords  are  able  to  get  in  their  rents. 
But  for  the  system  of  credit  there  would  be  no  one  in 
this  part  of  the  country.  I  often  have  out  ;^2,ooo  in  one 
year,  but  I  get  no  credit  myself  from  the  merchants.  I 
have  been  owed  some  ^^1,400  for  the  last  six  or  seven 
years,  and  if  I  can  get  half  that  I  shall  be  happy,  and 


174  ^^  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

would  take  any  thing  they  can  give  me,  a  horse,  a  cow,  a 
pig,  or  any  thing. 

"  The  people  are  also  largely  supported  by  American 
money.  About  Christmas  time  I  have  often  had  given 
me  to  cash  a  hundred  checks  on  Boston  and  New 
York. 

"  If  we  had  employment,"  was  his  conclusion,  "  that 
would  be  the  only  kind  of  Home  Rule  we  should 
want." 

In  the  evening  I  found  myself  still  far  from  Clifden  in 
a  heavy  rain,  so  I  asked  at  a  little  cabin  by  the  roadside 
for  hospitality,  and  was  Avelcomed  cordially.  There  was 
only  a  kitchen  and  one  room.  In  the  kitchen  were  a 
cow,  a  calf,  a  dog,  three  or  four  hens  and  a  cock  fiutter- 
tering  noisily  about,  and  in  a  corner  a  coop  full  of 
chickens.  Here  I  slept  on  the  ground  near  the  ashes  of 
the  glowing  peat  fire  ;  and  in  the  other  room  slept  the 
family — father  and  mother,  two  girls,  and  a  boy.  The 
silence  of  the  night  was  broken  from  time  to  time  by  the 
thud  and  splash  of  dung  on  the  mud  floor,  and  the  crow- 
ing and  clatter  of  the  fowls  woke  me  early.  There  was 
one  chair,  one  bench,  and  several  boxes  to  sit  on,  but  no 
table  ;  and  some  rude  harness  hanging  from  pegs  on  the 
wall  was  the  only  ornament.  "  Michael,  rise  up  !  "  shouted 
a  man's  voice,  about  seven  o'clock,  and  a  boot,  as  it 
seemed,  struck  violently  against  the  wooden  partition. 
Michael  lounged  in  and  rekindled  the  peat  fire  from  the 
dying  embers.  In  a  few  minutes  in  came  his  mother, 
and  milked  the  cow  in  front  of  the  fire  into  a  series  of 
dirty-looking  little  tin  pots,  that  reminded  me  of  old 
tomato  cans.  She  then  fed  the  calf  on  some  milk  and 
raw  potatoes,  and  in  a  little  time  gave  me  a  cup  of  excel- 
lent tea  and  a  piece  of  potato  bread. 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 75 

WHAT    THEY    SAY    AT    CLIFDEN. 

Clifden  is  a  town  of  some  seven  hundred  inhabitants 
on  an  inlet  of  the  sea.  A  graceful  bridge  spans  a  water- 
course yellow-brown  with  sea-weed,  famous  for  salmon, 
and  along  the  hillside  beyond  it  are  two  streets  of 
thatched  houses. 

There  is  but  one  small  industry  in  Clifden — the  carv- 
ing of  the  beautiful  Connemara  marble,  by  Alexander 
McDonnell  and  his  son.  The  intelligent,  kindly  old 
Scotchman  expressed  in  a  word  the  cause  of  the  people's 
discontent  when  he  said  :  "  We  are  shut  up  here  as  in  a 
prison,  and  the  wealth  of  the  country  is,  as  it  were,  locked 
up  behind  iron  bars.  Sometimes  for  weeks  we  are  with- 
out meal,  for  it  is  too  expensive  to  cart  it  from  Galway, 
and  the  little  boats  are  apt  to  be  detained  by  bad  weather. 
The  kelp  the  people  gather  a  few  miles  off  they  send  by 
cart  twenty  miles  to  an  agent  at  Cashel,  who  ships  it  to 
Galway.  On  Saturday,  at  the  fish-market,  the  fish  had  to 
be  salted  to  keep  it,  and  all  but  two  small  baskets  of  fine 
lobsters  had  to  be  thrown  into  the  sea.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  tons  of  the  best  marble  in  the  world 
in  the  Twelve    Pins,  but  the   people   cannot  get  at  it. 

"I  want  Home  Rule,  because  an  Irish  Parliament 
would  spend  public  money  wisely  and  without  so  much 
waste.  We  need  a  railroad  from  Galway  to  Clifden  to 
open  up  the  country.  Then  Clifden  would  double  in 
a  year  or  two,  and  the  people  would  not  have  to  run  away 
to  Scotland  or  England  to  earn  a  little  money  to  keep 
their  homesteads.  The  people  have  not  the  gear  nor  the 
boats  for  fishing.  Money  for  this  purpose  should  be  lent 
by  the  government.  The  imperial  Parliament  misman- 
ages such  matters.  The  government  is  now  spending 
some  ;j{^io,ooo  on  a  quay  a  few  miles  away,  and  they 


176  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN, 

might  just  as  well  throw  the  money  into  the  sea.  They 
advanced  money  to  the  Unions,  but  charity  and  distribu- 
tion of  relief  only  demoralize  the  people." 

The  catholic  curate,  Father  Biggins,  was  not  an  enthu- 
siastic Home  Ruler.  "  It  is  hard  to  see,"  he  said,  "  how 
Home  Rule  could  improve  the  condition  of  this  part  of 
the  country,  for  under  any  form  of  government  the  peo- 
ple cannot  be  well  off  so  long  as  they  depend  on  their 
little  holdings.  The  rent  is  very  little,  ;^4  or  ^^5,  and 
if  you  made  them  a  present  of  it,  it  would  n't  make 
them  a  bit  more  comfortable.  They  have  n't  land 
enough.  All  the  best  land  is  in  the  hands  of  graziers 
and  large  farmers.  Divide  the  grazing  lands  among  the 
dwellers  on  little  patches  on  the  coast  ;  they  would  pay 
more  than  the  graziers  do,  and  that  is  the  one  thing  that 
would  do  them  any  good. 

"  The  chief  benefit  Home  Rule  could  do  would  be  to 
encourage  the  fisheries  and  to  open  up  the  country.  It 
costs  a  jobber  too  much  to  come  here  to  buy,  and  a  man 
cannot  drive  cattle  to  a  railroad  forty  or  fifty  miles  off 
and  have  them  in  good  condition. 

"  The  tenants  have  not  generally  got  the  benefit  of  the 
Land  Act,  partly  because  of  their  subletting,  and  partly 
because  so  many  accepted  the  landlords'  terms.  Mr. 
Robinson's  offer  of  four  shillings  in  the  pound  to  Mr. 
Berridge's  tenants  was  generally  taken,  and  the  people 
were  at  first  delighted,  but  those  who  went  into  court  got 
often  as  much  as  ten  shillings  in  the  pound. 

"  The  rents  have  been  paid  about  here  as  well  as  ever. 
Hazell,  the  agent  of  a  Scotch  company,  living  at  Cashel, 
has  paid  eight  thousand  pounds  for  kelp  this  year.  That 
helps  the  people  a  lot  and  pays  the  rent. 

"  The  bankruptcy  of  the  Union  is  due  to  the  low 
rating.     Then,   when  the  forty  thousand   pounds  were 


IN   CONN  AUGHT.  1 7/ 

given  last  year  for  the  relief  of  distress,  the  local  guar- 
dians lost  their  heads  and  said  to  themselves  :  '  If  we 
don't  give  some  relief  at  once  the  money  will  be  all 
spent.'  So  this  year  the  rates  will  be  eight  shillings  in 
the  pound,  including  special  rates  to  meet  the  surplus 
expended  in  excess  of  the  government's  grant.  The  only 
remedy  is  to  amalgamate  two  or  three  Unions  with  a 
single  common  staff." 

Father  Linsky,  the  parish  priest,  is  a  man  of  wonder- 
ful energy.  ''  I  got  from  Mr.  Kendall,"  he  said,  ''  five 
shillings  in  the  pound  reduction  on  all  rents  not  judicial 
and  three  shillings  on  judicial  rents,  and  this  through  no 
agitation  except  my  personal  efforts,  though  I  have  the 
National  League  here  in  my  hand. 

"  In  this  parish  I  urged  the  tenants  to  go  into  court, 
and  I  filled  in  the  notices  myself  and  appeared  in  court 
for  many  of  them  who  were  too  poor  to  pay  costs.  On 
an  average  I  got  six  shillings  and  eight  pence  reduction 
in  the  pound. 

"  So  far  as  it  goes,  the  new  Land  Act  is  of  great  value. 
What  is  of  particular  benefit  is  that  the  commissioners 
will  adjudicate  the  rents  on  the  basis  of  prices  without 
expense  to  landlord  or  tenant. 

"  As  a  rule,  rents  settled  out  of  court  are  not  settled 
fairly.  At  Beeleek  and  Fahy,  on  Mrs.  Sufifield's  prop- 
erty, the  rents  were  settled  out  of  court  at  a  very  small 
reduction.  The  tenants  protested,  but  paid,  with  my  con- 
sent, for  I  found  them  too  poor  to  fight,  so  poor  that  they 
don't  care  to  come  to  church  on  Sunday  because  of  their 
ragged  clothes.  There  are  only  some  twenty  tenants, 
and  so  heavily  is  the  estate  encumbered  that  the  land- 
lord's interest  does  n't  exceed  sixty  or  seventy  pounds. 

"  The  people  here  are  simple-mmded.  Captain  Thomp- 
son's tenants   agreed   to   buy  their   holdings    at   twenty 


1/8  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

years'  purchase,  but  the  sale  fell  through,  because  one 
man  refused,  on  the  recommendation  of  the  parish  priest, 
who  thought  the  land  worth  not  over  eight  years'  pur- 
chase. When  the  tenants  were  asked  by  the  priest  why 
they  agreed  to  give  such  an  extraordinary  sum,  '  Well,' 
they  said,  *  we  thought  we  would  serve  Captain  Thomp- 
son without  doing  ourselves  any  harm.'  " 

In  the  large  beautiful  church  a  series  of  missionary 
services  was  being  held.  Thousands  listened  with  awe 
to  a  lurid  sermon  on  hell  by  a  Dominican  friar.  "  Every 
sinner  makes  his  bed  at  the  gates  of  hell."  "  One  spark 
of  hell  fire  would  turn  the  ocean  to  steam."  These  sen- 
tences rang  out  clearly  in  the  intense  silence  of  the 
hushed  congregation.  The  same  voice  sounded  much 
sweeter  in  Father  Linsky's  dining-room,  where  we  assem- 
bled in  the  evening  to  discuss  peasant  proprietorship. 
"  A  peasant  proprietary,"  it  was  said,  "  would  be  a  suc- 
cess. In  France,  Belgium,  Prussia,  and  a  large  part  of 
Russia  a  similar  measure  had  worked  well  and  not  ended 
in  a  restoration  of  landlordism.  Why  should  Ireland 
prove  an  exception  ? 

"  Land  scrip,  with  a  local  guaranty,  would  be  depre- 
ciated at  once,  as  all  paper  is  which  is  not  secured  by 
property  easily  realizable.  Let  the  imperial  government 
advance  the  purchase  money,  in  the  same  way  as  it  now 
makes  loans  to  fishermen.  Ireland  can  never  be  sepa- 
rated from  England,  and  whatever  our  local  government 
may  be,  the  imperial  government  will  always  be  able  to 
exact  repayment.  The  government  must  come  in,  for 
the  landlords,  after  they  cease  to  be  landlords,  can  never 
collect  payments,  and  no  one  else  will  be  in  a  position 
to  do  so  for  them.  Will  the  action  of  the  government 
be  resented  ?     Not  at  all.     The  collectors  of  taxes  and 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  179 

Other  government  officials  are  not  odious.  Indeed,  the 
gentleman  here  who  is  collecting  from  the  fishermen 
repayments  of  government  money  is  very  popular.  There 
are  just  men  here.  Under  the  Glebe  Loan  Act  not  ^500 
out  of  ^^250,000  are  outstanding  as  bad  debts.  The 
payments  of  the  fishery  loan  and  under  Lord  Ashbourne's 
Act  tell  the  same  story.  Those  who  wish  to  keep  the 
land  for  nothing  are  madmen. 

"  Subdivision  has  been  frequent  in  the  west,  largely 
because  the  landlords  were  needy  and  got  something  for 
the  subdivision,— an  increased  rent  or  a  fine,— an  obolus 

of  some  sort. 

"  Finally,  it  is  said  that  a  few  pounds'  rent  remitted  to 
a  small  tenant  would  not  help  him.  Suppose  I  get  a  re- 
duction of  four  pounds  ;  I  buy  pigs  ;  half  an  acre  of 
turnips  out  of  my  six  or  seven  acres  will  feed  them  ;  the 
pigs  cost  me  a  pound  apiece,  and  at  the  end  of  six  months 
they  sell  for  four  pounds.  The  rent  saved  will  be  a  little 
capital,  and  will  soon  multiply  itself." 

I  visited  Mr.  King,  a  farmer  at  Fahy,  who  acts  as  Mrs. 
Suffield's  agent.  He  has  five  acres,  for  which  he  pays 
four  pounds  sixteen  shillings.  He  has  also  commonage 
of  a  mountain  and  "  a  strip  of  the  weed"  on  the  shore, 
which  he  uses  for  manure.  His  house  was  built  by  his 
father.  He  has  one  acre  in  potatoes,  one  in  oats,  and  the 
rest  grazing.  He  has  no  horse  now  and  only  one  cow. 
"  I  am  not  in  arrears,"  he  said,  "but  should  be  if  I  had 
not  the  agency  of  the  property.  My  rent  is  a  fair  sample 
of  the  others.  We  all  settled  outside  the  court  for  25  per 
cent,  reduction,  and  thought  that  reasonable  enough  at  the 
time.  But  prices  have  been  growing  steadily  worse  since 
then,  and  I  don't  think  the  land  is  now  worth  the  rent. 
The 'farmers  here  don't  expect  to  get  the  land  for  noth- 


l8o  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

ing,  they  only  want  a  fair  price.  They  are  all  for  Home 
Rule,  but  don't  know  much  about  it.  They  think  it  will 
mean  employment  and  the  circulation  of  money,  but  how 
no  one  knows.  There  used  to  be  a  local  branch  of  the 
League  here,  but  it  has  died  out. 

"  After  a  Land-Purchase  Act  what  the  farmers  need 
most  is  loans  of  money  on  easy  terms.  Perhaps,  the  im- 
perial Parliament  would  have  more  money  to  loan  than 
a  Home-Rule  Parliament. 

"  The  farmers  are  very  poor  and  much  in  debt.  They 
have  gone  security  for  one  another  to  the  banks,  borrow- 
ing eight  or  ten  pounds,  on  which  there  is  charged  two 
shillings  a  pound  interest,  and  renewing  their  notes  every 
three  months.  The  shopkeepers  in  Clifden  have  given  a 
great  deal  of  credit  and  won't  get  much  of  it  back.  They 
also  give  them  '  loan  money '  for  which  they  charge 
twenty  per  cent,  interest." 

It  happened  to  be  market  day  in  Clifden,  and  in 
Casey's  drapery  and  spirit  shop  a  little  circle  of  farmers 
sat  and  talked.  Every  one  agreed  that  the  crops  were  ex- 
ceptionably  poor.  "  The  potato  crop  is  very  good,  hay  is 
very  light,  turnips  are  a  complete  failure,  and  oats  have 
never  been  known  to  be  so  bad  in  Connemara." 

James  Casey,  a  grazier,  came  in.  He  has  a  tillage 
farm  of  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  acres,  which  he 
holds  under  a  perpetuity  lease  for  twenty  pounds  a  year. 
"  Some  of  it  is  bog,  not  worth  sixpence  an  acre,  and  for 
some  I  would  n't  take  three  pounds  an  acre.  I  have  also 
some  two  thousand  acres  of  land,  one  farm  at  a  pound  and 
another  at  sixteen  shillings  an  acre.  These  are  not  with- 
in the  *  Land  Act,'  and  for  some  I  have  to  pay  in  advance. 

"  I  have  been  four  years  fighting  with  this  depression, 
and  am  now  giving  up,  as  I  am  losing  money.     A  few 


I?r  CONNAUGIIT.  l8l 

weeks  ago  I  brought  forty  or  fifty  bullocks  and  heifers  to 
a  large  fair  near  here.  I  have  got  twelve  and  thirteen 
pounds  for  worse  stock,  and  was  not  offered  a  shilling 
for  one  of  them. 

"  I  belonged  to  the  National  League  at  first,  but  as 
soon  as  it  seemed  to  be  turning  into  an  anti-rent  move- 
ment I  dropped  out,  for  it  would  n't  do  for  me  to  run  the 
risk  of  losing  my  farms." 

"The  people  ought  to  emigrate,"  said  another.  "I 
have  circumnavigated  the  globe,  but  the  people  here 
think  there  's  no  world  beyond  Clifden." 

The  master  of  the  workhouse  came  in.  "  I  was  an 
anti-Home  Ruler  till  lately,  but  now  believe  in  it. 

"  Its  principal  benefit  would  be  to  encourage  our  na- 
tive industries.  We  could  put  a  duty  on  English  shoddy. 
In  Westport,  next  door  to  where  I  went  to  school,  there 
used  to  be  a  distillery,  and  near  by  rope  walks,  and  four 
tan  yards  at  full  work.     All  are  gone  now. 

"  If  capital  is  needed  for  this,  there  's  the  Irish  National 
Bank  with  two  millions  of  Irish  savings  in  its  vaults. 

"  We  would  do  away  with  all  but  a  thousand  of  the 
fourteen  thousand  Irish  Constabulary  and  save  nearly  a 
million  pounds  in  this  single  item  ;  and  safely  too,  for 
satisfied  with  our  own  laws,  we  could  become  our  own 
policemen. 

"The  workhouses  should  be  got  rid  of.  Children 
under  fifteen  should  be  boarded  out,  and  old  people  left 
with  their  friends  and  given  an  allowance." 

I  asked  whether  the  Clifden  Union  had  not  been  ruined 
by  excessive  out-door  relief.  "  The  people,"  he  said 
"  were  demoralized  by  relief.  Some  years  ago  there  was 
*Jumperism.'  People  from  England  started  'Jumper 
Schools  '  in  behalf  of  the  Irish  Church  mission,  and  all 


l82  IN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

who  attended  got  so  much  a  week.  In  1879  and  1880 
there  was  a  cry  of  destitution  when  there  was  but  little, 
and  the  government  came  to  the  people's  relief.  In  1886 
there  was  another  cry,  and  Morley  got  a  large  grant 
passed,  which  was  shamefully  abused."  (All  present 
assented.)  "  This  was  the  fault  of  the  local  authorities, 
who  gave  money  to  people  not  destitute,  and  neglected 
any  remunerative  labor  test.  The  money  would  have 
relieved  the  distress,  and  yet  now  we  are  over  four  thou- 
sand pounds  in  debt. 

"  Peasant  proprietorship  I  believe  in,  and  don't  think 
the  evils  of  the  present  will  recur.  I  am  my  own  land- 
lord now  and  have  two  children.  I  shall  not  divide  my 
land  between  them,  but  will  act  like  a  Massachusetts 
farmer  and  send  one  or  both  of  them  away  from  home. 
Others  will  do  likewise." 

There  was  a  noise  outside,  and  we  joined  a  delighted 
crowd  that  surrounded  a  juggler,  in  bright-red  tights, 
who  devoured  hot  pokers  and  let  the  farmers  crack 
enormous  stones  on  his  chest.  He  took  up  a  collection 
that  amounted  to  nearly  three  pounds  ! 

In  the  hotel,  a  somewhat  mysterious  stranger  appeared 
in  the  commercial  room,  whom  I  took  to  be  a  land 
agent. 

"  These  Nationalist  Unions,"  he  began,  "  are  misera- 
bly mismanaged  ;  I  know  more  than  I  care  to  tell  about 
the  Tulla  Union  in  County  Clare.  The  ex-officio  guar- 
dians have  lost  control  of  the  management  and  the  chair- 
man is  a  small  farmer  holding  some  twenty  acres.  The 
property  of  the  Union  has  been  seized  for  debt.  The 
number  of  laborers'  cottages  there  is  enormous,  most  of 
them  built  only  to  spite  the  landlords. 

"  Here  in  Clifden  the  people  have  been  accustomed  to 


IN  CONN  AUGHT.  1 83 

hand-to-mouth  relief,  and  that  has  not  improved  their 
morals. 

*'  The  rents  may  seem  excessive,  but  these  men  along 
the  coast  who  complain  so  bitterly  don't  pay  more  than 
an  ordinary  laborer  pays  in  this  very  village,  a  shilling  a 
week  at  most ;  and  for  that  they  have  three  or  four  acres, 
pigs,  corn  and  potatoes,  a  right  to  cut  as  much  fuel  as 
they  want,  and  often  sea-weed  for  manure  free.  But  this, 
of  course,  won't  support  a  man  with  nine  or  ten  children. 
These  people,  too,  are  merely  laborers.  In  Mayo  and 
Donegal  they  go  every  year  to  England  and  Scotland  as 
harvesters.  In  Galway  and  here  they  are  fishermen.  In 
Carrarhoe  the  principal  means  of  subsistence  is  making 
poteen  whiskey. 

"  No  land  legislation  can  materially  help  such  people. 
I  know  well  an  estate  now  in  chancery,  where  the  ten- 
ants have  paid  no  rent  for  seven  or  eight  years.  They 
are  the  poorest  people  in  the  neighborhood.  If  they 
owned  the  farms  it  might  make  them  more  prudent,  but 
I  doubt  it,  for  there  are  no  natural  habits  of  thrift  among 
the  people. 

"  Home  Rule  I  cannot  believe  in,  for  the  doings  of  the 
Tulla  Union  show  me  that  the  people  cannot  yet  be 
trusted." 

CONNAUGHT    LANDLEAGUERS. 

County  Mayo  was  the  birthplace  of  the  Land  League, 
and  in  Westport  a  somewhat  extreme  position  was  rather 
concisely  stated  by  a  leader  of  the  early  movement.  "  The 
rights  of  the  landlords  are  not  to  be  acknowledged,  for 
their  titles  are  bad.  The  grants  to  the  planters  of  the 
north  of  Ireland  required  them  to  provide  so  many 
soldiers  each.     When  a  standing  army  was  established 


1 84  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

these  deeds  became  void.  The  land  belongs  to  the  peo- 
ple, and  can  be  taken  up  by  them  whenever  it  is  expedi- 
ent, with  or  without  compensation.  The  property  of  the 
landlords  was  confiscated  in  part  by  the  Land  Act  of 
1881,  which  gave  leases  for  a  period  of  fifteen  years  at 
rents  fixed  by  a  court,  and  took  from  the  landlords  their 
right  of  resumption.  That  principle  can  be  indefinitely 
extended. 

"  It  is  a  question  of  expediency,  not  of  justice.  Justice 
is  a  vague  word,  an  eighteenth-century  theory,  and  ap- 
peals to  you  as  a  Bostonian  and  a  reader  of  Herbert 
Spencer." 

I  suggested  that  the  American  Constitution  prohibited 
the  taking  of  private  property  for  public  use  without 
compensation,  and  that  a  written  constitution  Vv^ith  such 
a  clause  might  be  wisely  accepted  by  Irish  Nationalists. 
His  answer  was  a  surprise.  "  America  had  three  million 
inhabitants  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted  ;  it  has 
now  fifty  million.  Is  it  just  that  fifty  millions  should  be 
governed  by  three  millions,  and  those  of  a  deceased  gen- 
eration ?  It  is  unwise  to  tie  the  hands  of  posterity.  It 
was  so  decided  at  the  institution  of  the  present  French 
Republic.  I  should  oppose  a  written  constitution  for 
Ireland. 

"  If  the  Irish  in  America,"  he  said  again,  "  had  joined 
the  Republican  party,  the  Irish  question  would  have 
already  become  an  international  question.  Egan  could 
not  turn  them  at  the  last  election,  but  never  will  they 
vote  again  for  an  anti-Irish  friend  of  England,  such 
as  Cleveland."  It  was  perhaps  characteristic  of  some 
phases  of  Irish  thought  that  the  gentleman  characterized 
Sir  William  Harcourt  as  "  a — useful  scoundrel." 

Similar   opinions    were    expressed  in   Sligo  by  P.  A. 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 85 

M'Hugh,  editor  of  the  Sligo  Sentinel  and  president  of  the 
local  branch  of  the  League. 

*'  There  is  a  great  lack  of  bitterness  here,  due  as  much 
to  the  character  of  the  landlords  as  to  the  apathy  of  the 
people.  The  landlords  here  have  been  exceptionally- 
lenient. 

"  Mr.  Phibbs  is  fighting  the  'plan'  with  success,  for 
the  leaders  and  the  clergy  have  found  it  impossible  to 
prevent  many  of  the  tenants  from  paying  their  rent.  So 
many  of  these  cowards  were  there  that  no  attempt  has 
been  made  to  boycott  them.  But  a  few  farms  on  the 
estate  from  which  tenants  have  been  evicted  have  been 
kept  vacant  for  several  years,  and  if  Phibbs  tried  to  stock 
them,  injury  would  probably  be  inflicted  on  the  cattle 
and  their  caretakers.  To  keep  an  '  evicted  '  farm  vacant 
is  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  we  can  use,  and  any  one 
who  takes  such  a  farm  is  regarded  as  a  common  enemy 
and  cut  off  from  all  communication  with  the  people.  The 
Times  has  reprinted  with  comments  some  of  the  boy- 
cotting resolutions  printed  in  my  paper,  and  we  admit  the 
charge  of  intimidation  and  intending  to  intimidate.  We 
say  this  is  the  only  efficient  instrument  left  to  the  League. 

"  Michael  Coffey,  in  Gurteen,  took  a  farm  from  which  a 
Mr.  McDermott  had  been  evicted.  He  has  been  boy- 
cotted for  two  years  and  his  business,  that  of  a  spirit- 
grocery,  ruined.  His  children  have  not  been  allowed  to 
attend  school.  No  man  speaks  to  them.  He  is  think- 
ing" of  removing.  For  using  intimidatory  language  against 
Coffey  I  was  prosecuted  at  Petty  Sessions,  but  the  bench 
was  equally  divided.  The  local  magistrates  were  against 
me,  but  two  of  the  judges  were  personal  friends  of  my 
own,  and  one,  Mr.  Tigh,  went  down  from  this  town  to 
sit  there  to  prevent  my  conviction. 


1 86  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  Personally,  I  don't  think  any  eviction  could  be  just, 
for  I  don't  recognize  the  landlord's  title  at  all. 

"  As  to  Land  Purchase,  the  people  are  not  prepared  to 
adopt  such  a  scheme  till  advised  to  do  so  by  their  lead- 
ers. The  price  of  land  is  going  down  steadily ;  the 
longer  the  farmers  hold  off,  the  better  it  will  be  for 
them,  and  the  worse  for  the  landlords.  That  is  shown 
by  the  willingness  of  the  landlords  to  adopt  Archbishop 
Walsh's  plan  of  a  '  round-table  conference.'  The  sug- 
gestion was  a  mistake.  It  would  be  an  unnecessary  ad- 
mission of  a  right.  Until  the  Irish  land  question  can 
be  settled  by  an  Irish  Parliament,  no  other  plan  should 
be  adopted  for  getting  justice  from  the  landlords  save 
the  'plan  of  campaign.'  If,  again,  the  landlords  wait  till 
the  English  democracy  settle  the  Irish  land  question, 
they  will  be  worse  off  than  ever,  for  the  opinion  is  daily 
growing  stronger  that  the  landlords  have  no  claim  to  rent 
or  to  compensation  for  the  loss  of  it,  and  that  a  free 
ticket  to  Holyhead  is  the  most  that  any  of  them  de- 
serves. 

"  There  is  practical  unanimity  in  favor  of  Home  Rule 
in  this  part  of  the  country,  except  among  the  Conserva- 
tives, and  the  difference  between  Nationalist  and  Con- 
servative here  is  practically  the  difference  between 
Catholic  and  Protestant. 

"  Home  Rule  will  come  soon,  and  I  think  a  little  more 
'  physical  force  '  will  hasten  it,  like  that  of  the  black- 
thorns at  Mitchelstown  or  of  something  stronger." 

Mr.  M'Hugh,  according,  to  the  statement  of  a  Protes- 
tant and  conservative  tradesman  in  Sligo,  is  "  an  educated 
and  influential  man  ;  he  is  the  mouthpiece  of  thousands, 
and  there  is  no  other  prominent  spokesman  here  of  the 
Nationalist  party." 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 8/ 

JOTTINGS   IN    WESTPORT    AND    SLIGO. 

The  parish  priest  at  Westport,  Father  Begley,  was  a 
man  of  moderate  but  decided  views.  "  There  is  a  great 
lack  of  money  in  this  part  of  the  country.  But  for  the 
collection  made  a  year  ago  by  Mr.  Tuke  for  seed,  there 
would  have  been  great  distress  here.  I  gave  seed  to  over 
five  hundred  people  in  this  parish. 

"  The  landlords,  this  year,  did  not  look  after  the 
people.  In  this  parish  Lord  Sligo  forgave  the  rent  to 
many  poor  people,  but  made  no  general  reduction.  Lord 
Lucan  and  Sir  Roger  Palmer  did  nothing  for  us. 

"  Potatoes  are  good  this  year,  and  there  is  no  danger 
of  starvation  ;  but  there  is  no  sale  for  cattle  and  corn, 
and  I  don't  see  how  rents  are  to  be  paid. 

"  Home  Rule  would  help  us,  for  the  different  locali- 
ties would  be  represented  by  men  who  know  their  needs. 
Here  you  have  congested  districts  and  a  vast  amount  of 
unreclaimed  lands.  Lord  Lucan  on  one  estate  has  some 
fifteen  hundred  acres,  nominally  grazing  or  demesne 
land,  all  uncultivated.  If  this  and  similar  land  were 
divided  among  the  small  farmers  so  as  to  give  them  fifty 
acres  apiece  instead  of  ten,  they  will  be  more  prosperous 
and  the  shops  will  prosper  and  Westport  will  become 
twice  the  town  it  is.  A  Home-Rule  Parliament  would 
promote  migration  and  distribution  of  land. 

"It  would  also  encourage  factories." 

There  used  to  be  home  industries,  I  remarked,  which 
have  now  died  out. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied,  "  clothes  they  used  to  make  at  home, 
but  now  it  is  cheaper  for  them  to  buy  at  the  shops.  Pro- 
tection," he  added,  "  I  do  not  believe  in." 

A  landlord,  a  most  liberal-minded  man,  suggested 
some  points  that  are  often  not  considered. 


l88  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  The  country  may  be  purely  agricultural,  but  the  in- 
habitants need  not  be,  for  they  may  share  in  all  the  mer- 
cantile work  of  England.  You  can  go  from  Westport  to 
Manchester  for  eight  shillings  and  sixpence,  and  from 
Sligo  by  sailing  vessel  for  four  shillings.  It  is  as  easy  to 
go  from  here  to  Yorkshire  as  it  is  from  Kent.  Some 
years  ago  I  had  a  man  here  whom  I  employed  with  a 
horse  and  cart  during  the  winter,  while  during  the  sum- 
mer he  used  to  work  in  England.  I  helped  him  off  to 
Scotland  with  his  people.  In  two  years  he  was  back 
again.  He  said  he  had  to  pay  so  much  for  lodging,  board, 
and  coals,  that  he  found  himself  better  off  here  earning 
seven  shillings  a  week  than  in  Scotland  at  fourteen  shil- 
lings, and  that  he  made  more  going  there  every  summer 
than  staying  there  all  the  time. 

"You  speak  of  the  condition  of  Ireland  as  peculiar  ; 
that  the  tenants  have  no  resources  but  the  land,  and  can- 
not protect  themselves  in  any  bargain  with  the  landlords. 
That  may  be  so,  but  how  does  that  apply  to  the  large 
farmers,  who  must  have  a  large  working  capital  ?  These 
men  are  shrewd  and  as  able  to  take  care  of  themselves  as 
any  people  in  the  world,  yet  the  government  fixes  their 
rents.  One  of  the  earliest  cases  in  court  was  that  of  a 
man  in  the  centre  of  Ireland  who  was  paying  ^800  a 
year,  and  he  got  his  rent  reduced  to  a  little  over  ^600. 

"  Under  the  Land  Acts  a  tenant  now  can  do  what  he 
likes.  A  place  called  Thornhill,  between  Westpoit  and 
Lewisburg,  was  let  by  Lord  Sligo  to  a  friend,  a  Mr. 
Garvey,  in  the  Board  of  Guardians.  The  property  was 
let  for  ;j{^55  a  year,  the  valuation  being  ^91,  and  under  a 
twenty-one-year  lease.  On  its  expiration  the  widow  of 
Garvey  went  into  court  and  got  a  fair  rent  fixed  at 
^67  10^.     Lord  Sligo  appealed,  and  though  their  valuer 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 89 

valued  the  land  at  ^90,  the  Commissioners  fixed  the 
rent  at  ^75.  No  claims  were  made  for  improvements. 
For  many  years  Mr.  Garvey  was  unable  to  stock  the 
farm,  and  farmed  it  only  by  co7iacreing  it  and  by  taking 
in  grazing  cattle.  A  farm  has  seldom  been  so  ill-treated. 
Mrs.  Garvey  again  got  into  arrears,  and  finally  gave  up 
the  farm  to  Lord  Sligo.  It  is  now  let  to  two  solvent  ten- 
ants in  common  for  ^100,  and  they  pay  and  prosper. 

"  There  is  no  trade  or  profession  in  the  world,  but 
some  people  break  down  in  it  ;  a  fortiori,  there  must  be 
many  break-downs  where  the  people  are  poor  and  de- 
pendent on  the  changes  of  a  cold,  northerly  climate. 
Since  1879,  a  bad  year,  the  evictions  have  been  few  in 
comparison  with  the  number  of  broken-down  tenants. 
Before  that,  when  a  tenant  broke  down,  the  landlord 
often  gave  him  some  assistance  to  go,  and  allowed  him, 
as  a  very  general  indulgence,  to  sell  the  good-will  of  his 
holding.  The  neighbors,  who  generally  bought,  were  bet- 
ter off,  and  the  evicted  tenant  got  on  well  in  America 
when  he  could  n't  here.  These  broken-down  tenants 
are  now  accumulating  ;  and  the  League  does  not  let  them 
sell. 

''  If  there  were  no  question  of  eviction,  the  broken- 
down  men  would  remain,  without  paying  any  rent,  with- 
out selling,  and  in  poverty  ;  so  if  they  are  to  go  and  try 
to  mend  themselves  in  another  business  or  on  a  smaller 
farm,  the  first  move  must  be  made  by  the  landlord. 

"  Things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  now  that  peasant 
proprietorship  is  to  be  desired.  It  is,  however,  a  ques- 
tion of  great  intricacy.  What  is  the  price  to  be  ?  How 
is  it  to  be  paid,  in  cash,  or  notes,  or  a  promise  with 
security,  or  a  promise  that  will  never  be  kept  ?  If  you 
speak  of  a  county  or  local  guaranty,  I  should  refuse  to 


1 90  IN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

sell,  for  I  have  some  chance  of  getting  a  little  money  if  I 
hold  the  land,  but  I  shall  certainly  get  nothing  from  the 
county.  You  have  no  right  to  force  a  landlord  to  sell, 
unless  he  is  to  get  cash,  for  otherwise  you  in  no  respect 
improve  his  condition.  For  a  purchase  scheme  an  ad- 
vance of  money  by  the  imperial  government  is  essen- 
tial ;  and  a  county  guaranty,  which  to  an  individual 
would  be  worthless,  would  be  effective  when  given  to 
the  government.  It  would  require  only  an  extension  of 
methods  already  in  practical  use.  In  the  case  of  loans 
for  county  buildings  the  government  has  the  first  claim 
on  the  rates  before  any  officer  receives  his  salary.  Where 
money  is  borrowed  for  the  purchase  of  seed,  the  local 
government  board  can  impound  the  money  wherever 
they  find  it.  There  is  a  system  known  as  'imperative 
presentments,'  to  secure  the  repayment  of  loans  for  the 
support  of  extra  police.  If  there  is  any  failure  on  the 
part  of  the  local  authorities  to  put  on  a  levy  to  cover  the 
charges,  the  judge  of  assize  is  bound  to  do  so  on  the 
mere  production  of  a  government  certificate  that  the 
amount  is  due. 

"  A  Land  Purchase  bill  ought  to  precede  a  Home 
Rule  bill,  for  it  would  interest  the  people  in  the  main- 
tenance of  law  and  order.  In  my  opinion  that  would  be 
the  only  possibility  of  Kome  Rule  succeeding. 

"  The  effect  of  any  Land  Purchase  Bill  will  certainly  be 
to  ruin  half  in  number,  but  not  in  valuation,  of  the  pres- 
ent proprietors.  In  the  case  of  small  properties  the  owners' 
interests  will  be  extinguished,  for  they  are  more  deeply 
encumbered  even  than  the  large  landlords. 

"  Land  Purchase  is,  however,  necessary,  for  the  Land 
Acts  involve  most  of  its  disadvantages  and  few  of  its 
benefits.  "When  property  had  its  rights,  it  had  its  duties. 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  I9I 

Now  that  the  rights  are  abolished,  the  duties  go  with 
them.  Lord  Sligo  will  never  come  here  again.  He  has 
shut  up  his  stables  and  his  garden.  Few  people  of 
means  live  here  now,  for  they  cannot  get  the  little  enjoy- 
ments they  used  to." 

Mr.  Richard  Powell,  Lord  Sligo's  agent,  was  little  less 
emphatic. 

"  Almost  universally  the  landlords  will  clear  out,  for 
the  income  from  the  purchase  money  will  not  keep  up 
their  places.  I  know  many  who  would  be  ruined  by 
twelve  or  even  fourteen  years'  purchase.  Only  men 
like  Lord  Sligo,  who  have  other  resources,  will  be  able 
to  live  here.  The  others  will  have  to  strike  out  for 
themselves  in  a  new  country  ;  and  the  old,  the  feeble, 
and  the  women  will  be  very  badly  off. 

"It  will  be  hard  to  raise  money  for  'land  purchase.' 
Any  local  guaranty  would  probably  have  to  be  worked 
from  the  Unions,  where  you  already  have  a  clerk  and  a 
staff  ;  many  of  them  are  bankrupt  now  and  ought  to  re- 
fuse to  guarantee  any  thing  except  under  compulsion. 
As  a  poor-law  guardian  myself,  I  should  certainly  refuse 
to  sanction  any  guaranty." 

"  Does  n't  this  conclusion  bring  the  whole  matter  to  a 
deadlock  ?  "  I  asked  in  some  perplexity. 

"  Certainly,"  he  replied.  "  That  is  what  has  staggered 
all  the  statesmen. 

"  After  a  Land  Purchase  Act,  something  further  would 
be  required  to  stop  the  agitation  for  Home  Rule. 

"  Many  people  expect  to  get  '  protection  '  under  Home 
Rule,  but  the  English  people  will  not  give  Ireland  Home 
Rule  if  they  think  the  result  will  be  the  boycotting  of 
their  own  goods. 

"  If  Home  Rule,  like  Gladstone's,  were  granted,  I  am 


192  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

convinced  it  would  be  followed  by  a  movement  for  sepa- 
ration, and  that  by  a  repeal  of  Home  Rule  and  a  return 
to  the  present  condition  of  things. 

"  My  relations  with  the  tenants  are  friendly.  I  keep 
up  a  correspondence  with  many  of  them  in  America, 
and  they  tell  me  how  they  are  getting  on  and  ask  for 
news. 

"  From  November  to  June  last,  there  were  more  evic- 
tions in  this  neighborhood  than  I  remember  before  in  the 
same  time,  chiefly  because  on  Colonel  Clive's  property  at 
Ballycran  there  was  a  general  strike  against  rent,  but 
after  the  eviction  they  all  paid  up.  In  my  own  case  from 
all  I  had  ejectments  against  I  took,  as  I  always  do,  one 
half  the  rent  due  and  gave  a  clear  receipt,  as  all  I  want  is 
to  get  them  squared  up.  All  but  two  are  now  in  as  care- 
takers. We  leave  them  in  as  caretakers  till  they  have 
saved  their  crops,  and  then,  in  three  or  four  months, 
they  have  to  go,  but  in  the  meantime  a  great  many  pay. 
I  give  the  others  then  a  few  pounds  and  let  them  go. 

''  I  seldom  have  trouble  with  the  people,  but  they  are 
sometimes  singular.  I  have  known  men  with  money 
enough  to  pay  the  rent,  let  themselves  be  evicted,  and 
put  up  shanties  by  the  side  of  the  road  and  stick  there. 

''  Colonel  O'Callaghan  was  a  great  exception  to  the 
general  run  of  landlords,  and  I  think  that  both  he  and 
Lord  Clanricarde  might  have  been  juster  and  wiser  if 
they  had  given  a  good  reduction  at  first.  The  fact  is 
that  you  cannot  deal  with  the  Irish  people  on  business 
terms  but  must  use  considerable  diplomacy." 

On  the  car  between  Ballina  and  Sligo,  part  of  the  way 
I  sat  next  a  gentleman  who  turned  out  to  be  a  Methodist 
minister,  born  and  bred  in  Ballina — an  elderly  man,  with 
a  quick,  decisive  manner.     "  The  first  thing  the  people 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  193 

have  set  before  themselves  is  getting  rid  of  the  landlords, 
and  the  second  is  complete  separation  from  England. 

"  When  the  Land  League  was  started,  there  were  great 
positive  grievances,  though  they  were  largely  due  to  the 
great  competition  for  land  during  the  good  times  (1865 
to  1878)  when  men  would  offer  the  landlord  or  his  agent 
double  or  treble  the  value  of  a  farm  even  before  it  was 
vacant,  and  to  refuse  such  offers  would  have  been  more 
than  human.  Now,  there  is  no  excuse  for  the  agitation. 
It  continues,  however,  and  to-day  throughout  the  great 
part  of  Ireland  there  is  no  liberty.  I  know  many  who  have 
been  coerced  into  joining  the  League,  but  they  would  be 
afraid  to  have  their  names  known. 

"Look  at  the  conduct  of  the  trial  of  the  police  at 
Mitchelstown.  Mr.  Harrington  called  one  witness  a 
'murderer,'  and  forced  him  to  state  where  he  lived,  in 
order,  as  he  said,  that  the  place  where  a  murderer  lived 
might  be  known  to  the  public.  And  Mr.  Harrington  is 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  party  into  whose  hands  I  am 
asked  to  entrust  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  character, 
and  that  of  my  family." 

"Will  there  be  civil  war,"  I  asked,  "if  Home  Rule  is 
granted  ? " 

"  There  will  be  no  civil  war — that  is  an  exaggeration, — 
but  great  discontent." 

We  were  passing  one  of  those  enormous  stone  work- 
houses, that  so  often  disfigure  the  most  charming  Irish 
landscapes.  "  That  is  now  three  quarters  empty,"  Avas 
his  comment.  "  These  buildings  were  erected  on  a  great 
scale  throughout  the  country  between  the  years  1845  and 
1850.  The  houses  and  the  official  staffs  remain  as  large 
and  expensive  as  ever,  and  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  rates 
go  to  support  them  and  not  the  poor.  This  is  a  fair 
ground  for  complaint." 


194  I^  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

The  minister  got  off  at  Temple  Bar,  and  his  place  was 
soon  taken  by  a  stone-mason,  a  native  of  Colloony,  a 
neighboring  town.  "  I  don't  think  Home  Rule  will  do 
much  good  "  said  he.  "  There  has  been  no  employment 
for  us  since  the  agitation  began.  The  landlords  who  used 
to  give  us  work  have  no  money,  and  the  other  party  will 
never  give  us  any.  Sligo  is  full  of  workmen  and  trades- 
people who  say  the  same  thing,  and  yet  Sligo  is  the  best 
county  in  Ireland,  and  there  is  much  harmony  here  be- 
tween landlords  and  tenants,  and  no  crime." 

In  the  town  the  first  shop  I  entered  was  a  stationer's 
to  buy  a  newspaper.  The  shopkeeper  was  a  keen-eyed 
and  sharp  tongued  old  fellow.  When  very  young  he 
had  been  employed  in  Kerry  on  the  coast  survey,  and 
had  afterwards  been  for  many  years  in  the  constabulary; 
a  Protestant  but  not  an  Orangeman.  "  I  know  very  many 
persons,"  he  said,  "  who  would  never  have  joined  the 
League  if  they  were  free  subjects  ;  they  were  afraid  of 
injury  to  their  cattle  or  themselves. 

"  The  old  farmers  did  not  believe  that  the  landlords 
could  be  forced  to  reduce  their  rents,  and  refused  at  first 
to  join  either  the  League  or  the  *  Plan.' 

"  I  heard  Sexton  a  few  years  ago  address  a  meeting 
here,  but  it  was  only  tall  talk.  The  landlords,  accord- 
ing to  Sexton,  had  confiscated  the  property  of  the  ten- 
ants ;  their  right  to  get  any  rent  at  all  was  very  question- 
able, and,  in  any  case,  the  rents  had  already  amounted 
to  the  purchase  value  of  the  whole  land  ;  in  equity,  then, 
the  farmers  might  justly  refuse  to  pay  any  rent  and  not 
excessive  rents  only.  All  this  stuff  went  right  down  the 
throats  of  an  uneducated  and  gullible  people. 

"  In  talking  about  land  purchase,  I  have  often  said 
that  the   purchase  money  would  be   advanced   by   the 


IN  CONNAUGIIT.  1 95 

government,  and  have  been  answered,  even  by  intelligent 
people,  *  Ah,  but  it  has  been  paid  long  ago.' 

''  In  1882  I  went  down  to  County  Leitrim  on  business. 
A  widow  there,  Mrs.  Moore,  whose  second  husband  had 
just  died  without  children,  wished  to  sell  her  farm, 
and  join  her  only  son  in  Boston.  She  had  nine  acres  of 
very  wet  land.  The  poor-law  valuation  was  j[,'i.o,  and 
the  rent  had  been  reduced  from  j[,'i.Z  ^o  ^1°  i°-^'  The 
tenant  right  of  the  farm  brought  ^240,  after  deducting 
five  per  cent,  for  the  auctioneer's  fees  and  ^10  for  a 
year's  rent  then  due  on  it. 

"  By  the  Land  Act  I  think  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  whole  of  Ireland  has  been  thrown  into  a  state  of 
hocus-pocus  confusion, 

"A  majority  of  the  people  are  in  favor  of  Home  Rule, 
and  a  very  large  majority  of  the  shopkeepers,  who  are 
three  quarters  of  them  Catholics.  There  is,  however,  more 
toleration  here  than  in  most  places,  and  we  have  a  Pro- 
testant mayor  and  a  Catholic  majority  in  the  corporation. 

"  In  the  harbor  there  is  a  fair  run  of  shipping,  and 
steamers  from  Glasgow  and  Liverpool,  for  we  supply  the 
counties  of  Sligo,  Roscommon,  and  Leitrim.  A  grant 
was  given  for  a  quay  some  time  ago,  but  the  money  was 
lavished  and  the  quay  is  left  unfinished." 

A  DAY  WITH  A  POPULAR  LAND  AGENT. 

The  property  of  Lord  Clancarty  comprises  some  twenty- 
five  thousand  acres  in  and  around  Ballinasloe,  The  town 
itself  is  neat  and  thriving,  with  about  five  thousand  in- 
habitants. Here  there  are  no  manufactures,  but  the 
annual  fair  of  Ballinasloe  is  the  most  famous  in  Ireland. 
In  the  fat  years  of  the  seventies,  in  the  early  days  of 
November,  ninety  thousand  sheep  and  twenty  thousand 


196  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

oxen  were  often  penned  in  the  extensive  fair  grounds. 
Now  the  opening  of  Connaught  by  the  railroad,  and  the 
multipHcation  of  fairs,  has  reduced  the  number  to  a 
third,  but  still  the  farmers  swarm  here  from  all  parts  of 
the  country  and  for  a  week  every  bed  in  the  town  is 
taken  at  a  pound  a  night. 

The  late  Lord  Clancarty  was  a  well-known  philan- 
thropist. His  son  is  obliged  by  ill  health  to  spend  much 
time  on  the  Continent,  but  is  generally  in  residence  from 
October  to  February.  In  his  absence  the  tenants  are  not 
neglected  ;  the  labor  bill  never  falls  below  fifty  pounds 
a  week,  and  the  agent,  Mr.  Edward  Fowler,  represents 
the  landlord  on  the  Grand  Jury,  the  Board  of  Guardians, 
the  Board  of  the  Asylum,  and  the  Agricultural  Society. 
Mr.  Fowler  was  once  a  railroad  engineer,  and  afterwards 
studied  land  agency  under  Mr.  Trench.  A  tall,  sturdy, 
handsome  country  gentleman,  his  frankness,  impartiality, 
and  fairness  have  won  him  the  general  respect  of  the 
people,  and  enabled  him  last  year  to  defeat  with  ease  the 
attempt  to  start  the  '  plan  of  campaign '  on  the  property 
near  Loughrea.  The  tenants  are  now  all  paying  their 
rents  as  well  as  ever,  except,  he  said,  '*  the  bad  lot  under 
the  influence  of  the  agitators,  and  they  won't  pay  even 
'judicial '  rents." 

A  long  drive  with  Mr.  Fowler  over  the  estate  let  me 
see  the  country  as  it  looks  through  the  spectacles  of  a 
land  agent.  For  a  few  moments,  perhaps,  I  can  lend 
them  to  the  reader. 

"  There  's  a  substantial,  two-story  slated  house.  The 
man  who  lives  there  has  only  seven  or  eight  acres  ;  it  is 
fair  land,  but  besides  paying  the  rent  he  has  been  able 
to  pay  interest  on  ^150  he  borrowed  from  the  Board  of 
Works  to  build  the  house. 


IN  CON  NAUGHT.  19/ 

"This  piece  of  land  used  to  belong  to  an  old  Irish 
family.  The  last  of  the  race  walked  out  of  the  window 
in  a  fit  of  D.  T.,  and  the  property  was  bought  by  Lord 
Clancarty.  The  tenants  were  given  places  elsewhere  ; 
the  land  was  thrown  together,  levelled,  subsoiled,  drained 
on  high  Scotch  farming  principles,  and  let  to  a  Scotch 
grazier.  The  rent  was  lately  reduced  by  the  court  to 
^120,  on  the  ground  that  the  buildings  were  too  large 
for  the  property,  and  the  tenants  ought  not  to  be  charged 
full  value  for  them. 

"This  farm  I  let  to  an  English  tenant  on  English 
principles,  building  and  mending  myself,  and  I  wish  I 
could  get  more  tenants  of  the  same  sort  on  the  same 
terms. 

"These  are  the  best  tenants  about  here.  They  are 
mostly  Scotch  or  north  of  Ireland  men,  who  came  here 
when  the  weaving  trade  was  brought  into  this  part  of  the 
country  during  the  last  century." 

A  young  fellow  passed  us.  "  That  is  Armstrong,  a  fellow 
from  Fermanagh.  He  and  his  father  I  brought  here  my- 
self, as  I  wanted  them  to  teach  the  others  how  to  farm. 

"  All  that  flat  valley  was,  for  months  in  the  year,  a  lake, 
and  at  other  times  too  wet  to  shoot  snipe  in.  Now  the 
larger  part  has  been  drained  by  Lord  Clancarty  and  let 
to  that  Fermanagh  man.  We  made  him  an  English  ten- 
ant, slating  his  house  for  him  and  making  other  improve- 
ments, and  now  he  has  the  place  in  splendid  cultivation, 
and  is  going  to  break  up  more  land  next  year. 

"Where  those  haycocks  are  was  once  a  lake,  marked  on 
the  ordnance  maps  ;  the  water  is  now  six  or  seven  feet 
below  them,  and  the  drainage  was  all  done  by  me. 

"  Six  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  were  borrowed  by 
Lord  Clancarty  from  the  Board  of  Works  for  main  drain- 


198  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

age  and  roads,  exclusively  for  the  benefit  of  the  tenants  ; 
and  nearly  all  these  tenants  whose  lands  we  improved 
have  gone  into  court  and  got  from  ten  to  fifteen  per 
cent,  reduction.  As  it  is  we  are  paying  over  ^300  a  year 
interest  and  don't  get  a  penny  of  it  from  the  tenants. 
Indeed,  on  about  five  farms  the  rents  have  been  reduced 
to  below  what  they  were  before  we  drained  them.  Prac- 
tically, the  result  of  the  Land  Acts  has  been  to  stop  all  im- 
provements by  the  landlords,  and  in  future  every  thing 
will  have  to  be  done  by  the  tenants  and  will  not  be  done 
as  w^ell.  Then,  too,  till  1881  we  commonly  gave  the 
tenants  timber  and  slate  for  building  ;  but  that  also  we 
had  to  stop  so  soon  as  the  government  began  legislating 
our  property  away  from  us.  If  we  could  have  foreseen 
what  has  happened,  our  best  plan  would  have  been  to 
take  up  the  land  from  the  tenants  twenty  years  ago,  im- 
prove it  ourselves  and  let  it  now  on  judicial  leases. 

"  This  is  the  Manor  Mill.  It  was  let  with  twenty 
acres  on  lease  at  thirty-seven  pounds  a  year.  When  the 
lease  fell  in,  the  rent  was  not  raised,  although  meanwhile 
we  had  deepened  the  stream  and  drained  the  neighbor- 
hood at  an  expense  of  ^600,  besides  making  a  new  dam 
and  altering  the  wheel  from  an  overshot  wheel  to  a  low- 
breast  one.  The  miller  died  before  signing  an  agree- 
ment, as  he  had  promised,  authorizing  us  to  make  these 
changes  for  a  consideration  of  ^150,  the  average  profits 
for  the  time  the  mill  had  to  be  closed.  His  niece,  Mrs. 
Sellors,  refused  our  terms  and  brought  an  action  against 
Lord  Clancarty  for  ^2,000  damages  for  injury  done  to 
the  mill  and  the  watercourses,  which  experts  swore  were 
vastly  improved.  She  swore  she  had  nothing  but  the 
mill  to  live  by,  but  got  only  ^150  and  costs.  The  year 
after,  she  went  into  court  about  the  land,  and  swore  she 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  1 99 

lived  by  the  land  only,  and  the  mill  was  worth  nothing  ; 
the  sub-commissioners  reduced  the  rent  to  ^27.  I  ap- 
pealed and  got  the  rent  reinstated  at  ^37,  and  last  win- 
ter the  mill  did  more  work  than  for  twenty  years  past. 

"  Shanvolly,  here,  went  into  court  with  my  permission. 
I  thought  he  was  too  highly  rented,  but  wished  the 
reduction  to  be  legally  made. 

"  In  the  neighborhood  of  this  farm  we  spent  ^1,500  ; 
that  sum  has  been  almost  a  total  loss.  No  interest  was 
allowed  the  landlord  by  the  court ;  the  rent  was  reduced 
from  ^42  IS.  M.  to  ^38  lo^-.y  the  value  of  the  tenant  right 
was  fixed  at  ^100  ;  and  the  farm  was  sold  at  that  with 
all  our  improvements." 

We  came  now  to  the  farm  of  James  Ryan,  which  Mr. 
Foster  had  come  to  revalue  by  request  of  the  tenant. 
The  sheds  were  dilapidated,  with  a  tumble-down  roof, 
and  the  house  had  most  of  the  window  panes  broken  and 
seemed  deserted.  At  last  Ryan  appeared — a  middle- 
aged  man,  with  a  pleasant,  open  face.  "  This  farm," 
he  said,  "  was  taken  in  the  bad  times  of  '48  and  '49,  at 
^16  a  year.  Then  ^^8  was  put  on  on  account  of  the 
drainage  undertaken  by  the  landlord,  and  a  lease  for 
two  lives  was  given  to  my  father,  who  succeeded  his 
uncle  ;  in  due  time  he  built  this  house,"  a  substantial 
two-storied  building,  "  and  died  over  ninety  years  old." 
With  another  little  farm  Ryan  has  a  hundred  and  forty 
acres.  His  father  in  his  day  made  money  and  was  able 
to  buy  land  for  his  other  children,  but  Ryan  claims  to 
have  lost  "some  ^r,ooo  since  the  bad  times  began  in 
1879."  He  keeps  very  little  stock — only  four  milch 
cows,  two  yearlings,  and  three  calves  ;  and  so  far  as  I 
could  see,  he  was  a  very  indifferent  farmer.  The  thistles 
looked  as  though  they  were  cultivated  intentionally,  so 


200  IN   CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

thick  were  they,  and  so  tall  and  stout.  "  Sometimes,"  he 
said,  "  I  cut  them,  but  most  times  not.  When  the  cows 
get  them  in  the  hay  they  eat  them  just  as  greedily."  The 
potato  field  was  full  of  weeds,  a  sort  of  wild  buckwheat. 
But,  most  characteristic  of  all,  were  the  gates.  A  cart, 
with  one  wheel  off,  and  some  loose  sticks,  like  an  extem- 
tempore  barricade,  formed  the  gate  of  the  road  to  the 
house,  and  a  pile  of  stones  surmounted  by  a  branch  of  a 
tree,  with  bundles  of  furze  stuffed  in  the  interspaces,  the 
gate  to  the  field  opposite. 

While  Mr.  Fowler  was  pacing  the  land,  from  time  to 
time  consulting  his  map,  and  prodding  the  earth  with  his 
stick,  Ryan  lingered  and  chatted. 

"  Lord  Clanricarde's  property  at  Loughrea,"  said  he, 
"  is  fair  land,  and  I  don't  much  believe  in  the  Plan  of 
Campaign  there  or  anywhere.  The  best  thing  is  for  each 
man  to  make  his  own  '  plan  '  for  himself.  As  to  Lord 
Clancarty's  property,  in  spite  of  the  low  prices,  I  would 
sooner  put  money  into  it  than  take  it  out. 

"  If  we  are  to  have  '  Land  Purchase,'  I  believe  in  pay- 
ing a  fair  price  for  it.  It  is,  however,  very  hard  to  de- 
termine the  value  of  land.  It  is  chiefly  guesswork.  If 
the  purchase  money  is  advanced  by  the  government,  they 
ought  to  charge  us  not  more  than  two  and  a  half  per 
cent,  interest,  or  it  will  be  as  hard  for  us  to  pay  as  the 
rent.  Such  a  loan  cannot  be  absolutely  secured,  for  if 
the  farmers  don't  pay  and  force  is  used,  there  will  be  a 
regular  revolution." 

We  drove  back  to  Ballinasloe  by  a  circuitous  road, 
passing  through  one  townland  where  no  one  has  paid  any 
rent  for  two  years.  Here  lives  a  widow,  Biddy  Dolan. 
Her  husband  had  been  found  many  years  ago  in  occupa- 
tion of  a  little  hut  on  a  strip  of  bog,  two  miles  off.     He 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  20I 

was,  probably,  a  squatter  ;  and  as  no  holding  was  wanted 
there  and  the  hut  was  an  eyesore  to  the  tidy  agent,  a  high 
rent,  j[^2i  9^-  '^^'^  imposed  on  the  five  Irish  acres,  to  drive 
the  man  out. 

"  I  want  the  woman  to  give  the  place  up,"  said  Fowler, 
"as  I  don't  care  to  have  such  a  wretched  spot  on  the 
estate  ;  it  is  tumbling  down,  and  not  occupied  for  any 
purpose  ;  no  rent  has  been  paid  for  over  two  years  and 
none  ever  will  be." 

"  Biddy,"  he  called  out,  "Biddy,  come  here  !  I  want 
you  to  let  me  take  up  that  place  of  yours  down  in  the 
bog,  and  then  Lord  Clancarty  will  forgive  you  the  ar- 
rears on  it.  Over  eight  pounds  you  owe  us,  and  you 
know  you  can't  pay  it." 

"  Shure,  your  Honor,  I  '11  keep  it  till  I  die,  for  half  the 
rent." 

"  I  don't  think  it  would  be  wise  for  you  to  keep  it  for 
that." 

"Shure,  your  Honor,"  the  son  joined  in,  "the  money 
all  went  for  nothing.  It  was  not  able  to  produce  enough 
to  keep  the  house  thatched." 

"  I  know  it." 

"  Give  it  to  me  for  what  your  Honor  thinks  it  is 
worth,"  cried  Biddy. 

"  I  don't  want  any  such  tenancy  on  the  property  ;  it  is 
no  ornament  to  the  estate,  and  no  benefit  to  you." 

"  Lord  Clancarty  has  had  a  lot  of  money  for  the 
place,"  said  the  son,  "  and  it  is  not  worth  sixpence  an 
acre." 

"  I  honestly  don't  believe  it  is,"  the  agent  admitted. 

"  My  man  had  it ;  and  I  won't  give  it  up  till  the  Lord 
calls  me." 

"  You  will  never  make  a  pound  off  it." 


202  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

"  I  know  I  won't,  but  I  am  tight  for  land  here,  and 
shure  I  might  feed  a  little  baste  on  it." 

"You  don't  live  on  it,"  shouted  the  agent  as  a  parting 
shot.  "You  do  nothing  with  it ;  it  would  n't  feed  a  rat ; 
it  is  a  mere  strip  of  snipe  bog,  and  the  roof  has  fallen  in. 
But  if  you  are  unreasonable  the  sheriff  will  have  to  see 
to  it." 

"  It  would  cost  us  jQ^  xos."  he  continued,  turning  to 
me,  "  to  get  a  decree,  and  it  would  n't  be  worth  that. 
I  shall  let  it  alone  now,  and  report  the  matter  :  I  don't 
want  a  person  who  does  n't  live  on  the  estate  keeping  a 
claim  there  for  the  purpose  sometime  of  raising  a  flame. 
I  shall  probably  get  a  decree  at  Petty  Sessions,  and  then, 
if  she  ever  does  put  *  a  little  beast '  there  I  can  seize  it 
and  bring  her  to  terms." 

Half  a  mile  farther  on  we  passed  a  neat  little  house 
and  farm.  "  Here  is  where  Kelly  lives,  a  very  different 
sort  of  person  from  his  next-door  neighbor.  An  indus- 
trious man,  he  pays  as  much  rent  as  the  others,  and  is 
never  behindhand,  and  yet  has  made  money  enough  to 
buy  more  land.  Killeen,  the  neighbor,  has  n't  paid  any 
thing  for  two  years. 

"  In  the  house  opposite,  there  lives  a  great,  big,  brawl- 
ing fellow.  He  paid  no  rent,  and  in  his  cups  used  to 
say  that  if  ever  I  came  near  him  he  would  do  something 
for  me."  The  day  I  heard  it,  I  went  there.  He  came 
towards  me  with  a  reaping  hook  in  his  hand.  I  sat 
down  on  the  side  of  the  ditch  and  began  to  talk  to  him. 
Finally  I  said  :  '  Now  throw  that  thing  down  and  shake 
hands.'  He  did  so,  said  I  was  n't  a  bad  fellow,  promised 
to  pay  up,  and  kept  his  promise." 

Nearer  Ballinasloe  is  a  fine  property  of  some  three 
hundred   acres,  which    Lord  Clancarty   purchased  just 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  203 

before  the  Land  Act  of  1881,  at  the  large  price  of 
;^i  1,000,  about  thirty  years'  purchase  of  the  existing 
rental.  "  If  he  were  selling  this  to  the  government  to- 
day," said  Mr.  Foster,  "  he  would  probably  not  get  over 
eighteen  years'  purchase  at  a  pound  an  acre.  See  what 
utter  ruin  the  government  is  bringing  on  the  landlords. 
I  have  spent  ^100  in  levelling  the  fences  and  making  a 
new  drain  on  this  land,  and  we  wont  let  it  to  tenants  ex- 
cept in  conacre  so  as  to  keep  it  out  of  the  Land  Act.  " 

We  were  thus  naturally  led  on  to  talk  about  Land 
Purchase.  Lord  Clancarty  will  in  any  event  be  a  large 
proprietor.  The  mansion,  the  demesne  with  its  thousand 
acres,  the  estate  we  were  looking  at,  the  town  and  its 
appurtenances,  will  remain  his  property  to  keep  or  sell 
as  he  likes,  and  the  rest  the  tenants  will,  probably,  be 
forced  to  purchase.  A  general  valuation  of  the  whole 
country  Mr.  Fowler  thought  necessary.  "  I,  with  assist- 
ants, could  value  Lord  Clancarty's  twenty-five  thousand 
acres,"  he  suggested,  ''  in  six  months."  The  present 
commissioners  he  thought  incompetent.  "  They  are,  as 
a  rule,  impecunious  men  of  the  farmer  class,  of  no  stand- 
ing or  experience."  No  light  was  thrown  on  the  vexed 
question  of  payment.  "  Greenbacks  on  the  security  of 
Irish  land,  the  interest  to  be  paid  by  the  farmers,  would 
be  worthless."  In  general  he  seemed  pessimistic.  "  The 
expropriation  of  the  landlords,"  he  said,  "  will  be  ruin  to 
shopkeepers.  The  country  will  go  back  a  century.  I 
thought  of  going  away  this  year." 

A     DAY     AND     A     NIGHT     WITH     NATIONALISTS     AT     BAL- 
LINASLOE, 

Purtil,  the  President  of  the  League,  I  found  in  his 
grocery,  an  amiable  man  who  prides  himself  on  his  mod- 


204  I^  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

eration.  "Lord  Clancarty,"  he  admitted,  "we  don't 
call  a  bad  landlord.  The  rents  have  come  down  as  they 
are  from  generations.  Here  and  there  we  find  people 
who  have  been  tenants  so  long  that  they  are  unwilling  to 
go  into  court,  but  think  they  will  soon. 

"  Mr.  Fowler  is  not  a  bad  man,  but  he  wont  take  ad- 
vice. I  think  he  would  like  to  see  the  tenants  well  off, 
if  he  could  get  at  the  right  way  of  going  about  it.  I  be- 
lieve there  have  been  some  evictions,  but  not  near  Bal- 
linasloe.     I  know  no  cases  of  extreme  hardship  here. 

"  "We  find  great  difficulty  in  getting  Lord  Clancarty's 
tenants  to  be  active  in  our  movement.  One  reason  is 
they  get  so  much  employment  from  Lord  Clancarty,  and 
they  are  afraid  it  may  cease  if  they  join  us.  However, 
they  are  getting  more  independent. 

"  Last  January  six  shillings  in  the  pound  were  given 
for  that  half  year,  and  four  shillings  for  the  half  year 
preceding. 

"  A  few  tenants  went  into  court  when  the  first  Land 
Act  passed  and  got  little  reduction.  Then  when  Mr. 
Fowler  was  giving  as  much  as  thirty  per  cent.,  he  refused 
to  consider  these  cases,  on  the  ground  that  people  who 
went  to  law  should  abide  the  consequences. 

"  Any  Purchase  Act  from  the  present  government 
would  be  badly  received.  The  people  think  that  '  Coer- 
cion '  will  rob  a  *  Purchase '  bill  of  many  of  its  merits. 
The  farmers,  too,  will  not  avail  themselves  of  any  act 
not  given  as  a  final  settlement.  They  will  wait  for  some- 
thing better  to  turn  up.  They  would  rather  take  a  larger 
reduction  now  and  wait  for  a  final  settlement.  They 
remember  that  the  men  who  went  into  the  land  courts 
early  did  not  get  as  good  reductions  as  those  who  waited 
till  later.     It  does  fall  in  with  the  views  of  a  great  many 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  205 

that  there  will  be  no  settlement  of  the  land  question  till 
Home  Rule  is  granted,  but  the  people  will  accept  a  good 
Purchase  Act  first,  and  then  will  go  in  straight  for  Home 
Rule. 

"  The  townspeople  mostly  are  in  favor  of  Home  Rule, 
and  think  it  would  revive  trade  wonderfully,  but  the  far- 
mers are  slow  and  have  to  be  educated  up  to  it. 

"  They  have  too  m.uch  to  do  beyond  to  look  into  our 
local  affairs  here.  That  ought  to  be  done  by  County 
Boards,  but  the  national  desire  for  a  Parliament  would 
lead  to  further  agitation,  even  if  the  scheme  of  County 
Boards  worked  well. 

"  In  this  town  v/e  have  plenty  of  water  power,  a  splen- 
did river  running  idly  by,  and  if  we  had  a  woollen  fac- 
tory here,  which  I  have  no  doubt  would  spring  up  under 
a  Home  Rule  Parliament,  the  young  people  would  be 
employed,  and  all  would  be  benefited.  When  things 
settle  down  under  Home  Rule,  capitalists  will  be  willing 
to  invest,  and  then  bounties,  duties,  and  exhibitions  will 
encourage  manufactures. 

"  It  may  be  a  government  by  ecclesiastics.  What  of 
that  ?  The  clergy  of  this  country  have  ever  been  faith- 
ful guides  of  the  people,  temporally  as  well  as  spiritually. 
In  no  country  in  the  world  do  they  enter  into  the  wel- 
fare and  happiness  of  the  people  so  much  as  here.  A 
priest  will  do  all  he  can  for  a  parishioner  in  trouble,  and 
then  it  will  be  the  man's  own  fault  if  he  is  not  lifted. 
Both  priest  and  bishop  are  sprung  from  the  people,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  lead  them  right. 
Their  influence  is  great,  bnt  the  reason  is  that  it  has  always 
been  used  for  our  good,  and  to-day  the  body  of  the  clergy 
are  as  true-hearted  and  able  as  ever.  Not  three  people 
in  a  hundred  in  Ireland  will  disagree  with  me  here." 


206  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

The  secretary  of  the  League  is  Father  Costello.  His 
words  were  strong.  "  From  here  to  Banagher,"  he  said, 
"  you  pass  through  Pollock's  estate,  where  he  evicted 
seven  hundred  families  ;  and  four  miles  to  the  north,  in 
County  Roscommon,  he  evicted  fourteen  hundred  more. 
East  of  this,  again,  another  Scotchman,  Mathers,  evicted 
five  hundred  families.  North,  south  and  east  there  ex- 
tends a  decimated  plain.  Midway  between  here  and  Birr, 
from  a  little  hill  that  overlooks  the  whole  country-side, 
you  will  see  not  a  house  except  a  herd's  hut. 

"  Lords  Clancarty  and  Clonbrook  are  the  best  land- 
lords in  County  Galway.  Lord  Clancarty  never  raised 
the  rents,  and  never  exacted  the  highest  rent  for  a  farm 
when  it  became  vacant  :  but  the  Land  Commissioners 
have  taken  off  forty  or  fifty  per  cent,  in  some  cases,  and 
his  agent  has  appealed. 

"  Lord  Clancarty  has  improved  the  property  fairly, 
or  rather  this  town,  where  he  has  erected  many  fine 
buildings.  His  draining  operations  I  don't  believe  are 
very  considerable.  He  gets  ^16,000  a  year,  and  is  most 
of  the  time  abroad.  Where  are  the  factories  he  might 
have  started  ? 

"  Sir  Henry  Burke's  father  was  a  good  man,  he  was  a 
good  landlord  in  his  way,  not  exacting  the  highest  penny 
for  his  land,  and  yet  as  much  as  forty  and  fifty  per  cent, 
has  been  struck  off  his  rents  in  some  cases. 

"  There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  priority  of 
the  land  question  and  Home  Rule.  As  a  priest,  as  the 
government  has  conceded  the  principle  of  '  dual  owner- 
ship,' I  would  not  question  the  title  of  the  landlords.  That 
is  the  Irish  moral  opinion.  Still  the  English  Parliament 
is  not  competent  to  settle  the  question  of  compensation ; 
it  has  not  legislated  so  often  for  the  good  of  Ireland. 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  20/ 

"  For  a  hundred  years  we  have  been  governed  by  Eng- 
land. What  has  she  done  for  us  ?  We  were  nine  mil- 
lions ;  potatoes  and  meal  would  have  supported  us,  and 
England  would  not  give  us  that.  She  has  maintained 
here  a  dominant  oligarchy.  Many  a  farmer  could  not 
marry  his  daughter  without  asking  the  agent.  If  the 
agent  saw  a  girl  nicely  dressed,  he  would  often  raise  her 
father's  rent.  The  ot?ier  day  one  of  the  Land  Commis- 
sioners told  me  he  was  going  to  value  a  farm,  and  seeing 
a  fine  clover  field,  turned  to  the  farmer,  and  said  : 
'  Shure,  you  can't  say  your  land  is  bad.'  He  replied  : 
'  Bad  luck  to  that  clover  field! '  and  explained  that  after 
he  had  worked  at  it  a  long  time  and  succeeded,  the 
landlady  saw  it,  and  made  it  the  standard  for  the  whole 
farm,  raising  the  rent  accordingly." 

In  the  evening  at  Purtill's  store,  half  a  dozen  of  us 
sat  and  smoked  our  short  clay  pipes, — Comyn,  a  far- 
mer ;  Egan  and  O'Connor,  shopkeepers  ;  and  Kennedy, 
the  foreman  of  a  quarry. 

Egan.  "  Nothing  short  of  Home  Rule  will  satisfy  the 
Irish  people  ;  but  they  will  accept  any  Land  Bill  as  an 
instalment."     All  agreed. 

Comyn,  "  No  matter  what  the  leaders  wish,  the  ten- 
ant farmers  would  accept  a  Land  Purchase  Bill  as  final 
and  give  up  Home  Rule." 

Ketinedy.  "  I  want  whatever  Parnell  wants,  and  Dillon 
— nothing  short  of  that.  If  I  had  sufficient  force  at  my 
back  I  would  clear  the  whole  lot  of  landlords  out  of 
Ireland  to-morrow,  but  that  's  impossible.  I  would  be 
content  with  nothing  short  of  separation  for  all  the 
wrongs  of  the  last  six  centuries, — separation  and  repara- 
tion ;  till  then  I  take  all  our  leaders  can  get.  We  are  as 
favorably  situated  as  Belgium,   with  its  own  king,  near 


208  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

France.  Why  should  n't  we  have  a  republic  or  a  king  of 
our  own  here  ?  I  think  the  majority  of  the  younger  men 
agree  with  me." 

Egan.  "  If  we  adopt  the  action  of  our  leaders  now, 
how  can  we,  as  honest  men,  take  Home  Rule  except  as 
a  final  settlement  ?" 

O'Connor.  "  If  we  cannot  get  Home  Rule  now  except 
as  a  finality,  are  not  we  right  in  pretending  ?  The  big- 
gest rogue  is  the  best  politician.  Take  Gladstone.  His 
speeches  are  inconsistent,  and  he  is  our  model." 

Piirtill.  "  Would  the  country  accept  Gladstone's  bill 
as  final  ?" 

Omnes.  "  That  is  the  question." 

Purtill.  "  That  would  depend  on  the  financial  settle- 
ment. We  pay  on  whiskey,  our  national  beverage,  a  tax 
one  third  higher  than  the  English  pay  on  an  equivalent 
amount  of  beer,  their  national  beverage. 

Comyn.  "  There  is  a  great  deal  of  sentiment  still 
against  the  connection  with  England,  no  matter  what 
the  financial  settlement  might  be." 

Egan.  "  Seeing  that  the  people  are  apparently  satisfied 
with  what  the  members  are  doing,  and  the  members  have 
accepted  Gladstone's  bill,  we  should  be  satisfied  with 
it." 

Kennedy.  "  The  best  way  of  getting  total  separation  is 
to  get  partial  separation  first." 

O'Comior.  "  If  I  have  an  account  of  j£6o  against  a 
man,  I  would  accept  ^30,  but  should  be  very  slow  to 
give  him  a  receipt  in  full." 

Egan.  "Suppose  the  man  said,  'Will  you  take  ten 
shillings  in  the  pound  as  payment  in  full  ? '  Ought  n't 
you,  on  getting  the  ^30,  to  give  him  a  receipt  in  full  ?  " 

O'Connor.     "  If  the  fellow  had  gone  to  court  with  you. 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  2O9 

and  you  knew  he  had  the  money,  you  would  be  a  fool  to 
do  so." 

I  suggested  :  "  Surely  the  government  has  done  some 
generous  things.  Why  else  should  they  have  passed  the 
last  Land  Act  ?  " 

O'Connor.  '^  That  was  in  deference  to  Russell  and  not 
to  Parnell.  There  were  too  many  lease-holders  in 
Ulster."  • 

"  Where  will  the  Home-Rule  Parliament  get  money  ?  " 
asked  I. 

Purtill.    "From  the  English  people." 

Fallefi  (a  shopkeeper  and  farmer,  who  had  just  come 
in).  "  Even  if  my  wages  were  less  under  Home  Rule,  I 
should  still  cry  out  for  it.  Our  Parliament  will  have  the 
treasury  of  the  country  to  start  industries  with." 

When  I  asked  how  the  condition  of  the  west  would  be 
improved,  he  replied  :  "  It  is  not  with  the  sea-coast 
people  we  have  to  deal,  but  with  inland  men  like  these 
here." 

"  Would  you  accept  a  constitution  like  that  of  Massa- 
chusetts, with  clauses  against  the  violation  of  contracts 
and  taking  of  private  property  without  compensation  ?  " 

"  No  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Can  we  not  pass  laws  for 
ourselves,  without  England  saying  we  must  not  pass  a 
law  in  violation  of  contracts  ?  " 

Fallen  then  said  he  would  tell  me  his  story  if  I  cared 
to  hear  it.     This  is  the  story  : 

"  In  1846  my  father,  with  five  other  promising  young 
men,  went  up  to  Dublin  to  buy  a  farm  offered  in  the 
Four  Courts.  He  got  it  for  thirteen  shillings  an  acre,  a 
hundred  and  fifty  Irish  acres  in  County  Roscommon. 
In  1863  William  Daniel  Kelly,  the  landlord,  being  a 
spendthrift  and  short  of  money,   raised  the  rent   to   a 


2IO  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

pound  an  acre.  The  next  year,  he  inveigled  the  tenants, 
under  a  threat  that  some  Scotchman  would  come  in  and 
turn  the  whole  into  sheep-walks,  into  taking  out  leases. 
We  had  to  pay  jC^-^^  for  the  lease,  which  was  for  thirty- 
one  years,  or  three  lives,  at  ;^i  2s.  an  acre.  Up  to  1876 
we  found  no  difficulty  in  paying  our  rent,  and  my  father 
brought  up  a  large  family — ten  of  us.  He  built  a  house 
and  offices,  made  a  boundary  fence,  or  'mearing,'  and 
drained  it.  In  1873  I  went  into  ironmongery  here  and 
served  my  five  years,  being  supported  by  my  father.  In 
1876  my  eldest  brother  emigrated  to  America,  and  the 
next  year  two  sisters.  In  1880  an  elder  brother  married 
and  got  ;^i5o  with  his  wife.  He  had  his  portion  of  the 
farm  set  off  to  him,  sixty  acres  ;  a  house  was  built  for 
him,  and  he  took  a  mare  and  foal  at  ;^2o,  two  heifers 
and  twenty  sheep  at  £,S^i  ^  ^^^^  ^^  ;^^2,  and  ^^30  was 
allowed  for  the  house.  His  wife's  fortune  soon  went, 
and  in  1886  he  was  totally  without  capital,  and  was  on 
the  eve  of  eviction  for  one  year's  rent.  I  had  saved 
some  money  by  that  time  and  paid  the  rent,  becoming 
tenant  myself.  Last  year  I  paid  a  second  year's  rent, 
partly  out  of  my  savings  ;  and  now  another  is  due.  How 
am  I  to  pay  it  ?  It  may  drive  me  to  desperation — it  may 
drive  me  to  the  Devil ! 

"  The  farmers  are  quite  willing  to  have  the  land  ques- 
tion settled  first,  but  if  our  necks  were  in  the  gallows  we 
would  n't  rest  till  we  got  Home  Rule.  Even  with  Home 
Rule  we  may  never  get  over  our  feeling  for  a  separate 
nationality,  but  our  children  may." 

A    "  PLAN    OF    CAMPAIGN  "    TOWN. 

"  Go  to  Loughrea  if  you  want  to  study  the  land  ques- 
tion," said  a  casual  acquaintance  at  Clifden.     "  There 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  211 

the  '  Plan  '  is  in  full  blast.  In  1881  and  1882  the  foun- 
dation for  the  agitation  was  laid  in  blood.  Within  a 
circuit  of  six  or  seven  miles  there  were  eight  or  nine 
agrarian  murders.  At  Woodford,  on  the  property  of 
Lord  Clanricarde,  who  also  owns  Loughrea,  March 
twelvemonth,  Finley,  a  process-server,  was  shot  dead  in 
the  wood  while  cutting  timber.  He  was  an  old  Crimean 
soldier,  and  his  widow  went  down  to  the  village  and 
cursed  the  Catholic  curate,  who  was  an  officer  of  the 
League.  The  police  had  to  bring  a  coffin  from  a  distance 
of  fifteen  miles  to  bury  him. 

"  There  were  about  a  dozen  evictions  near  Woodford 
about  a  year  ago,  and  so  great  was  the  excitement  that 
the  sub-agent  and  all  the  wood-rangers  on  the  estate  re- 
signed their  places  simply  from  fear. 

"  In  the  present  agitation  there  have  not  been  many 
murders;  for  boycotting  proves  a  very  efficient  weapon,  as 
there  is  a  wholesome  recollection  of  the  outrages  that  pre- 
ceded it.  A  man  who  lives  in  a  wild,  remote  spot  in  the 
country,  and  gets  a  letter  threatening  him  with  the  fate 
of  Blake  or  of  Finley,  if  he  persists  in  a  certain  course, 
must  be  a  brave  man  to  hold  out." 

These  remarks  I  had  in  mind  as  I  drove  to  Loughrea, 
the  town  of  the  '*  gray  lake,"  through  an  interesting  coun- 
try, twenty-two  miles  from  Ballinasloe. 

The  town  itself  is  decayed  and  wretched.  I  counted 
over  twenty  ruined  houses.  Few  people  were  moving  in 
the  streets,  the  shops  looked  as  though  a  purchaser  was 
unknown,  and  the  hotel  as  though  no  guest  had  rung  a 
bell  there  for  a  year.  Constables  were  strolling  in  twos 
and  threes  wherever  one  turned.  One,  a  sergeant,  spoke 
about  the  outrages  : 

"  Mr.   Blake,  an   agent  of  Lord   Clanricarde,  and  his 


212  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

driver,  were  shot,  a  short  quarter  of  a  mile  from  town,  as 
they  were  driving  in  on  a  market  day. 

"  Mr.  Burke  Rihassane,  a  landlord,  near  Castle  Taylor, 
and  Corporal  Wallace  who  accompanied  him,  were  shot 
in  open  daylight,  while  returning  from  Gort  '  Petty  Ses- 
sions.' 

"  Dempsey,  for  taking  an  '  evicted '  farm,  was  shot  at 
Hollypark,  on  his  way  to  mass,  about  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning. 

'*  Dogherty  was  murdered  for  land-grabbing,  at  night, 
in  the  yard  of  his  own  house,  at  Carrigar. 

"  Sergeant  Lintan  was  shot  in  Church  Lane,  nearly  op- 
posite the  church  here,  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
because  he  was  too  sharp  after  the  publicans. 

"  There  were  several  persons  tried  for  these  murders, 
but  no  evidence  could  be  got,  and  no  one  was  convicted, 
except  in  the  case  of  Dogherty's  murder.  Two  men  were 
sentenced  to  be  hung  for  that,  but  they  were  remanded 
and  are  now  in  jail." 

James  Kennedy,  who  is  famous  as  the  first  man  in  the 
town  who  paid  his  money  into  the  "  Plan  of  Campaign  " 
fund,  was  standing  in  the  doorway  of  his  shop,  a  spirit 
grocer)',  like  a  sentinel  on  duty.  "  I  am  standing  here," 
he  said,  '*  on  the  look-out,  to  give  warning  in  case  any 
one  pounces  on  us. 

"  Two  hours  ago,  there  was  a  sale  of  shop  goods,  across 
the  way,  belonging  to  John  Bowese.  He  can  pay  well, 
but  we  are  all  on  a  general  strike. 

"  Loughrea  is  in  a  state  of  siege.  Sometimes  we  have 
three  hundred  police  here,  and  then  they  are  cut  down 
to  forty  or  fifty.  It  was  once  a  prosperous  town,  before 
the  crops  failed  and  the  cattle  and  sheep  died  from  some 
kind  of  disease.     It  was  a  centre  of  grazing,  but  that  has 


IN  CON  NAUGHT.  213 

been  ruined  by  American  competition.  Our  only  in- 
dustries, are  the  'awl'  and  the  'needle.'  Everything 
now  is  at  a  deadlock,  and  I  don't  believe  six  houses  in 
the  town  are  self-supporting,  far  less  making  any  rent. 
The  town  is  in  a  state  of  semi-bankruptcy. 

"  We  pay  ten  shillings  in  the  pound  taxes. 

"  The  rental  of  my  house  and  six  acres  of  land  attached 
to  it,  is  ^27  10^.  ]\Iy  license  costs  ^10,  and  the  rates 
and  taxes  for  the  year  are  ^8  \os.  During  the  eight 
months  past  I  haven't  made  the  taxes  from  my  business. 
This  year  my  land  which  I  let  in  conacre  did  not  bring 
me  in  the  rent  and  taxes. 

"  Last  October,  Lord  Clanricarde  offered  us  twenty 
per  cent,  reduction,  but  we  wanted  forty  per  cent.,  though 
we  would  probably  take  thirty  per  cent  Then  we  struck 
against  him  completely,  and  he  has  not  got  a  penny  from 
us  since  except  by  seizures.  We  all  paid  a  half  year's 
rent  under  the  '  Plan  of  Campaign,'  less  eight  shillmgs  in 
the  pound.  I  and  a  dozen  others  are  fighting  the  battle 
of  fifteen  hundred  tenants.  Lord  Clanricarde  wants  to 
keep  up  his  rental  in  order  to  have  a  good  basis  for  sell- 
ing under  a  Land  Purchase  Act.  He  's  a  limb  of  perdi- 
tion, seizing  and  evicting  and  doing  every  thing  he  can 
to  annoy  us.  He  seems  to  be  entirely  callous.  There 
is  no  sign  of  surrender  yet  on  either  side. 

''  Every  sod  and  house  in  the  town  belongs  to  Lord 
Clanricarde.  This  part  of  his  property  is  worth  about 
_;2£"2o,ooo  a  year  to  him,  and  we  have  n't  seen  a  Clanricarde 
here  since  the  old  marquis  died  twelve  or  thirteen  years 
ago. 

*'  There  have  been  no  outrages  here  since  the  shooting 
of  Blake.  The  outrages  then  were  caused  by  '  landlord- 
ism.*     The   policeman  who  was  shot  was  shot  for  his 


214  ^^  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

officiousness  in  attending  Land-League  meetings  as  a 
government  spy. 

"  P.  Sweeny  is  president  of  the  '  District  Organizing 
Branch,'  which  has  charge  of  offiences  against  the 
League.  How  do  they  punish  offenders  ?  By  not 
speaking  to  them,  by  not  dealing  with  them,  by  avoiding 
them  in  the  market-place,  in  town  and  country,  and  leav- 
ing them  to  the  indignity  \sic\  of  their  neighbors.  This 
has  a  good  deal  of  effect.  At  least  a  couple  of  tenants 
have  been  forced  to  give  up  farms  they  had  grabbed. 

"  Tullahill  farm,  eighty  or  ninety  acres,  was  held  by  a 
brother  of  mine,  who  gave  it  up  because  the  rent  was  too 
high.  Another  man  went  in  and  took  it  over  the  heads 
of  the  town  people,  who  wanted  it  for  a  town  park,  for 
the  accommodation  of  milch  cows.  The  new  man  was 
of  course  obnoxious  to  the  people  and  had  to  give  up  the 
farm,  which  Lord  Clanricarde  finally  had  stocked  and 
kept  by  the  Land  Corporation. 

"  The  agent,  his  bailiffs,  and  emergency  men  get  no 
supplies  from  the  neighborhood,  and  the  soldiers  have  to 
keep  a  shop  of  their  own  in  the  barracks." 

Land  purchase  he  strongly  approved  of.  "  I  consider," 
he  said,  ''  the  farmers  would  be  willing  to  buy  for  any 
reasonable  price." 

A  more  detailed  account  of  the  causes  of  the  agitation 
here  was  given  by  the  Catholic  Administrator,  Father 
Cunningham. 

"  The  trouble  has  been  going  on  since  the  Nolan  elec- 
tion, about  1876,  in  the  life  of  the  old  marquis.  The 
rents  were  raised  then  because  the  tenants  would  not 
vote  for  the  landlord's  man.  Blake  was  the  agent.  The 
times  were  good,  and  he  put  on  all  the  rent  he  eould. 
Such  tenants  were  the  first  to  go  into  the  land  courts  ; 


IN  CONN  A  UGHT.  2 1  5 

and  then,  owing  to  Lord  Clanricarde  appealing  the  cases 
and  pressing  them,  they  found  they  could  get  no  justice 
from  the  courts  or  the  landlord,  and  took  to  the  wild  jus- 
tice of  revenge.  The  other  outrages  were  due  to  much  the 
same  circumstances. 

"  In  1S79,  owing  to  the  famine,  the  tenants  were  una- 
ble to  pay  the  full  rents.  The  Land  League  started  here 
in  1880.  In  1 88 1  the  Land  Act  was  passed,  and  great 
relief  was  expected  from  it  ;  but  those  who  went  into 
court  then  got  only  about  five  per  cent,  reduction,  and 
that  was  not  enough,  though  it  brought  the  rents  down 
to  about  Griffith's  valuation.  That  valuation,  however, 
was  unusually  high  on  the  Clanricarde  estate,  because  in 
1858,  when  it  was  made,  this  was  a  great  wheat-growing 
country,  and  wheat  was  high  ;  now  wheat  is  very  low, 
and  the  wheat  lands  have  been  turned  into  pastures. 

"  Lord  Clanricarde  appealed  from  all  the  judicial 
rents,  and  that  deterred  others  from  going  into  court. 
But  after  Blake  was  shot,  in  1882  and  1S83,  there  was  a 
sudden  jump  in  the  price  of  cattle  and  sheep,  and  for  a 
while  the  rents  were  pretty  fairly  paid.  When  prices  fell 
again  suddenly,  the  farmers  had  to  sell  off  stock  on  a 
falling  market  to  meet  the  rent,  and  that  impoverished 
them  greatly.  Every  half  year,  Joyce,  the  new  agent, 
instituted  legal  proceedings  to  recover  the  rent,  and  that 
impoverished  the  tenants  still  more,  for  they  had  costs 
to  pay. 

"  Last  August  twelvemonth,  six  tenants  were  evicted 
and  some  twenty  others  writted  who  have  not  yet  been 
disturbed.  Some  of  them  were  only  a  year  and  a  half 
in  arrears.  Whenever  the  amount  due  was  over  ;^2o. 
Lord  Clanricarde  brought  suit  in  the  Superior  Court,  so 
as  to  carry  ^\o  costs.     A  company  of  soldiers  and  a 


2l6  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

number  of  police  were  here,  and  it  took  weeks  to  get 
into  one  house. 

"  In  October,  last  year,  Lord  Clanricarde  offered,  with- 
out solicitation,  a  reduction  of  twenty  per  cent,  to  those 
agricultural  tenants  who  had  holdings  under  ^^50  valua- 
tion and  who  had  not  gone  into  court.  The  tenants  re- 
jected the  offer,  and  none  has  been  made  since.  A  num- 
ber of  them  would  have  accepted  if  the  evicted  tenants 
were  reinstated,  but  the  majority  did  not  think  the  re- 
duction sufficient,  though  twenty-five  per  cent,  all  round 
would  have  been  taken. 

"  The  Plan  of  Campaign  was  then  adopted.  The  shop- 
keepers, of  course  could  pay,  but  they  said  they  would 
fall  in  with  the  rest,  as  they  lived  on  the  people.  Many 
of  them  were  writted  last  Christmas,  and  within  the  last 
fortnight  the  new  agent  has  made  a  number  of  seizures 
of  shop  goods. 

"The  government  has  suppressed  the  League  here,  be- 
cause, I  suppose,  of  the  intimidation.  There  has  been 
intimidation,  without  doubt,  but  no  serious  outrages  of 
late. 

"  In  the  end.  Lord  Clanricarde  can  get  the  rent  from  a 
certain  number  by  proceeding  as  he  is  doing,  but  from 
more  than  half  he  will  never  be  able  to  get  the  full  rent, 
and  he  won't  be  able  to  evict  them  without  a  great 
scandal. 

"  Peasant  proprietorship  must  come  in  time  ;  I  don't 
care  from  which  party,  but  when  it  does  come  I  think 
the  people  will  lose  their  interest  in  the  Home  Rule 
movement. 

"  The  leaders  use  the  land  question  as  a  lever  for 
Home  Rule,  and  don't  want  a  settlement  ;  but  if  a  good 
bill  were  introduced  the  people  would  not  mind  them. 


IN  CONNAUGHT.  21/ 

The  priests  will  give  sounder  advice  ;  and  without  any 
advice  at  all  the  farmers  will  look  out  for  their  own  in- 
terests. Then  the  same  feeling  which  prompts  a  man  to 
buy  land  will  make  him  keep  it  ;  he  will  be  as  loath  to 
sell  as  he  now  is  to  give  it  up  to  the  landlord,  and  land- 
lordism will  not  spring  up  again. 

"  The  landlords  are  few  in  number  and  the  tenants 
many  ;  so  of  the  two,  it  is  better  that  the  former  should 
suffer  ;  besides,  the  ruin  of  the  tenants  would  not  benefit 
the  landlords,  for  they  could  not  make  the  land  pay  with- 
out them. 

"  From  Home  Rule,  impossibilities  are  expected,  and 
changes  that  will  require  vast  sums  of  money.  A  Home 
Rule  Parliament  will  have  no  capital  and  little  credit, 
and  the  only  means  of  raising  money  will  be  by  taxation. 
What  the  people  expect  to  do  is  to  tax  imports,  and  they 
argue  that  that  will  both  fill  the  exchequer  and  encour- 
age native  industries.  The  two  objects  are  probably  in- 
consistent." 

On  the  way  back  to  Ballinasloe  I  stopped  at  a  village, 
Kilreegan.  An  old  farmer  with  white  hair  talked  in  a 
loud,  good-natured  voice. 

"Michael  Henry  Burke,  of  Ballydoogan  Castle,"  he 
shouted,  "is  the  best  landlord  in  Ireland.  His  father 
was  a  good  one  too,  and  gave  good  reductions.  We  pay 
a  good  landlord  his  rents  with  satisfaction.  He  was  in 
Texas  for  four  or  five  years,  and  our  tongues  could  not 
express  our  gladness  to  get  him  home. 

"  In  his  father's  time,  if  we  wanted  some  timber,  what- 
ever we  wanted,  he  never  refused  us. 

"  Lord  Clonbrook  was  very  popular,  but  he  evicted  a 
man  some  days  ago,  and  when  some  of  the  tenants  asked 
for  a  reduction,  he  evicted  them. 


2l8  IN   CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

"  Nineteen,  twenty,  and  thirty  pounds  I  have  known 
added  to  the  rents  as  costs  on  Lord  Clanricarde's  prop- 
erty. 

"  I  am  seventy-seven,  and  the  corn-crop  is  the  poorest 
I  ever  saw,  and  the  meadowing  never  was  so  light.  The 
potatoes  are  good,  but  the  cabbages  have  failed.  We  can- 
not live  by  the  profits  of  the  land." 

Pat  Gallagher,  a  tenant  of  Lord  Wallescourt,  was 
standing  by  : 

"  I  have  seven  acres,  rented  at  seven  pounds,  and  am 
now  evicted.  The  tenants  asked  for  thirty  per  cent.,  and 
only  fifteen  was  offered. 

"  The  locality  is  not  able  to  pay  taxes,  much  less  rent. 

"  What  do  I  do  with  my  land  ?    Begorra,  I  can't  tell." 

Here  a  workingman  broke  in  with  :  "  We  can't  get  any 
work.  Half  a  day,  during  the  harvest,  and  during  the 
winter  nothing  but  an  odd  day  or  two.  The  farmers  are 
too  poor  to  give  us  work ;  they  could  n't  if  they  owned 
their  holdings." 


PART   IV.— IN  ULSTER- 

GWEEDORE AN    EVICTION 

Twenty-two  miles  from  Letterkenny,  in  the  centre  of 
a  wild,  desolate  region,  is  a  large,  square,  wooden  build- 
ing, enclosing  a  broad  courtyard — this  is  the  Gweedore 
Hotel.  Behind  us,  on  either  side  of  the  long,  dreary 
road  stretch  hills  that  seem  little  more  than  vast  piles  of 
loose  stones,  variegated  with  patches  of  bog  and  grass, 
black  and  green-bronzed  over  with  the  fading  heather  ; 
the  desolation  unbroken  save  when  a  black-faced  sheep 
peers  curiously  through  the  low  wire  fences  that  reach 
from  rock  to  rock,  or  where  a  thin  blue  line  of  smoke 
curls  from  a  tiny  stone  hut  nestling  by  a  narrow  ribbon 
of  potato  ridges  in  the  rare  shelter  of  a  wind-driven 
clump  of  trees.  Before  us  towers  that  beautiful  moun- 
tain Erigal,  a  pyramid  of  gleaming  limestone  ;  at  our 
feet  are  neally  trimmed  hedges  of  purple-crimson  fuschias, 
and,  when  all  is  still,  to  our  ears  the  light  wind  brings 
the  murmur  of  the  neighboring  ocean. 

This  is  the  property  of  Captain  Hill,  the  eldest  son  of 
Lord  George  Hill,  who  in  his  day  was  regarded  as  a 
model  philanthropic  landlord. 

"  He  built  the  hotel,"  said  a  business  man,  a  strong 
Nationalist,  who  for  fourteen  years  had  been  familiar 
with  the  place.  "  He  tried  to  encourage  neatness  and  in- 
dustry by  offering  yearly  prizes  to  the  tenant  who  kept 
the  tidiest  house  or  who  made  the  best  frieze.  He  was  a 
constant  visitor  at  the  hotel,  and  took  the  greatest  inter- 

219 


220  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

est  in  the  property.  The  great  wrong  he  did  was  to  let 
the  commonage  of  the  mountains  to  Scotch  graziers, 
and  then  to  fine  the  people  for  the  destruction  of  the 
sheep,  which  was  only  in  part  malicious.  Except  for 
this,  there  was  little  difference  between  Lord  George 
and  his  tenantry." 

To  the  loss  of  their  ancient  rights  of  grazing  the 
people  attribute  their  poverty  ;  but  the  graziers  are  to- 
day more  hard  hit  by  the  fall  in  prices  than  any  other 
class  in  Ireland,  and  there  must  be  other  causes  to  ac- 
count for  the  unquestionable  poverty  of  the  people. 
The  average  size  of  the  holdings  is  not  over  four  acres, 
but  thirty  years  ago  these  small  tenants  were  fairly  well 
to  do,  for  Gweedore  was  famous  for  its  lobsters,  which 
were  exported  as  far  as  Paris,  and  the  kelp  which 
abounded  all  along  the  coast  was  extremely  valuable. 
Now  the  lobster  fishery  is  exhausted,  and  the  price  of 
kelp  is  low.  In  such  a  district  the  pressure  of  American 
competition  is  severely  felt,  for  the  smallest  rent  cannot 
be  paid  without  ready  money,  and  farm  produce  is  be- 
coming more  and  more  difficult  to  dispose  of  at  prices 
sufficient  to  meet  the  cost  of  carriage  to  the  nearest  mar- 
ket. The  average  rent  of  a  holding  is  twenty-five  shil- 
lings a  year,  but  even  this  cannot  be  collected  without 
threats  and  violence.  For  this  purpose  some  seventy- 
five  of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  have  been  quartered 
for  the  last  month  in  the  garrets  of  the  hotel  stables.  A 
resident  magistrate  and  a  stipendiary  magistrate  are 
waiting  the  directions  of  the  agent,  Colonel  Dobbing, 
and  in  an  angle  of  the  road,  anxiously  watching  the 
movements  of  the  police,  may  be  seen  the  sturdy  form  of 
the  parish  priest,  James  McFadden,  and  beside  him  in 
long  cloaks  Professor  Stuart,  M.P.,  and  friends. 


IN    ULSTER.  221 

Colonel  Bobbing  was  the  agent  of   the  late  Lord  Lei- 
trim    who  with  his  driver   and  footman   was  murdered 
some  years  ago.     To  pacify  the  tenants  he  was  dismissed 
by  the  present  Lord  Leitrim,  and  was  recently  appointed 
agent  to  Captain   Hill.     "Father  McFadden,"  said  my 
informant,  "protested  against  the  appointment,  and  the 
tenants  refused  to  have  any  thing  to  do  with  him,  though 
they  were  willing  to  pay  their  rents  to  Robertson  of  the 
Hotel   or  to  Hill  himself."     Until  the  present  Land  Act 
comparatively  few  of  the  tenants  were  able  to  go  mto 
court,  because  so    many    of  them   had    sublet.     In   the 
spring,  several  were  evicted  and  were  allowed  to  return 
as  caretakers  on  a  promise  by  the  parish  priest  that  they 
would  either  pay  or  go  out  quietly  in  six  months.     Such 
at  least  is  Dobbing's  account.     "  Bobbing,"  said  a  visit- 
ing priest  to  me   as  he  offered  me  a  seat    on  his   car, 
"Bobbing  is  a  descendant  of  Heppenstal,  the    walkmg 
gallows,'  who  in  '98  used  to  hang  criminals  on  his  own 
neck,  he  was  so  tall  and  strong." 

Father  McFadden  is  beloved  by  the  people  as  much 
as  Colonel  Bobbing  is  hated.  About  1872  he  was  ap- 
pointed curate  in  the  Rosses,  and  won  a  great  reputation 
for  zeal  and  benevolence,  starting  the  temperance  move- 
ment and  harmonizing  the  people.  A  few  years  later  he 
was  appointed  parish  priest  of  Gweedore,  the  youngest 
priest  in  the  diocese,  at  a  place  requiring  great  energy. 

Here  he  built  a  parochial  schoolhouse  and  decorated 
the  church  "  A  stream  passed  under  the  church,"  said 
an  enthusiastic  admirer,  "  and  a  few  years  ago  it  was 
flooded  during  service.  He  had  to  get  up  and  cling  to  the 
altar,  and  two  persons  were  drowned.  Father  McFadden 
had  a  new  channel  dug  for  the  stream  on  one  side  of  the 
church  ;  and  all  these  things  he  did  with  money  collected 


222  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

outside  of  the  parish.  Almost  all  the  people  he  has  now 
got  enrolled  in  a  temperance  society,  and  he  leads  them 
and  protects  them  in  every  thing." 

Such  are  the  priest  and  the  agent.  It  is  perhaps  not 
surprising  that,  in  the  words  of  a  magistrate,  "  Father 
McFadden  and  Colonel  Dobbing  are  like  cat  and  dog. 
Dobbing  insists  on  the  tenants  paying  at  least  half  the 
costs  of  the  ejectment  proceedings,  some  thing  like  ^^250, 
in  addition  to  the  rent,  and  that  Father  McFadden  will 
never  allow." 

Soon  the  long  line  of  constables,  in  their  blue  military 
uniforms  and  forage  caps,  began  to  move,  headed  by  the 
Stipendiary  Magistrate,  a  mild-mannered  gentleman  with 
but  little  heart  in  the  work,  and  Colonel  Dobbing  with  a 
rifle  on  his  shoulder,  a  rigid,  uncompromising,  pale-faced, 
and  haughty  man.  Two  miles  from  the  hotel  the  police 
halted  by  the  roadside,  while  the  agent  and  the  magis- 
trate marched  slowly  up  a  sloping  field  to  the  door  of  a 
little  cottage, — a  rude  stone  hut,  with  one  window, 
thatched  with  "  scraws  "  of  sod,  green  with  grass  and 
weeds.  "  Here  lives  Margaret  Doughan,"  said  a  voice  at 
my  side.  "  The  rent  is  fifteen  shillings  a  year  for  the 
cottage  and  a  patch  of  land,  and  she  has  turf  from  a  bog 
and  grazing  on  the  hillside  free.  The  landlord  built  the 
house  himself  at  a  cost  of  seven  pounds,  and  now  he  is 
puHing  it  down.  I  used  to  be  bailiff  here,  but  for  the 
last  six  years  have  had  no  dealings  with  the  people. 
When  I  did  I  found  them  the  best  people  in  the  world." 

The  agent  stepped  quickly  to  the  door  to  demand  pos- 
session, and  at  that  moment  Father  McFadden  ran  up  to 
him,  crying  out,  ''  I  have  a  proposal  to  make." 

"  Will  you  pay  the  cash  .? "  demanded  Colonel  Dobbing. 

"  No  ! " 


IN   ULSTER.  223 

"Then  go  ahead,"  he  shouted  to  the  emergency  men. 

"  I  offer  two  thirds  of  one  year's  rent,  if  all  arrears 
are  forgiven  !  "  cried  McFadden,  in  great  excitement. 

"  Mr.  McFadden,  walk  off,  sir  !  "  shouted  the  Colonel, 
now  thoroughly  aroused.  Four  or  five  rough-looking  men 
seize  long  iron  bars  and  begin  striking  at  the  door.  In  a 
few  minutes  it  is  torn  down  and  discloses  a  rough  barri- 
cade or  rather  a  wall  of  large,  flat  stones  five  feet  high,  and 
from  behind  it  a  shower  of  hot  water  issues  in  a  cloud  of 
steam.  Several  constables  now  join  in  the  fray  and  tak- 
ing shelter  under  cover  of  the  wall  on  each  side  of  the 
door  dart  forward  from  time  to  time,  ducking  to  avoid 
the  water  that  jets  out  in  intermittent  streams,  tug  at  the 
stones  in  the  doorway,  and  finally  carry  them  off  in  tri- 
umph as  they  are  loosened  by  the  continuous  blows  of 
the  emergency  men.  At  last  they  leap  over  the  ruins 
and  reappear  with  the  still  struggling  warriors,— an  old 
woman  in  a  patch-work  dress  of  rags,  a  boy  and  a  girl, 
and  a  neighbor  called  in  to  assist  in  the  defence  of  the 
homestead.  This  valiant  neighbor  is— a  sturdy  young 
married  woman  with  an  unweaned  baby  at  her  breast. 
The  contents  of  the  hut  are  now  removed,  one  by  one, — 
an  old  bench,  a  few  pots  and  pans,  and  some  soiled 
blankets. 

The  eviction  was  scarcely  over  when  up  jumped 
Father  McFadden  and  again  confronted  Colonel  Bobb- 
ing, and  in  an  instant  it  became  clear  that  at  the  bottom 
of  the  difficulty  at  Gweedore  was  a  personal  contest  for 
mastery  between  these  two  men,  the  aristocrat  and  the 
peasant,  both  equally  sincere  and  equally  uncompromis- 
ing. 

"  I  am  authorized,"  said  the  Champion  of  the  Peo- 
ple, "  to  make  a  most  generous  offer.  I  offer,  in  the  name 


224  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

of  Professor  Stuart  here,  two  thirds  of  the  whole  year's 
rent  of  the  agricultural  holdings  on  the  estate,  ;^6oo  or 
jQ^oo,  if  all  arrears  are  wiped  off  and  the  same  reduction 
allowed  for  the  future." 

"I  refuse  to  allow  any  interference." 

"  I  am  sure,"  retorted  McFadden,  not  uncourteously, 
"  you  cannot  arrange  the  affairs  of  the  estate  without  my 
assistance.    I  represent  the  people." 

"  I  wish  to  make  this  offer,"  interrupted  Professor 
Stuart,  gently,  "  believing  I  know  the  condition  of  the 
tenants." 

"  I  don't  believe  you  can,"  was  the  reply.  "  You 
have  got  your  facts  from  the  camp  of  the  enemy.  I 
will  discuss  the  matter  with  you  at  the  hotel,  but  not 
here,  and  not  until  these  caretakers  have  given  up  pos- 
session." 

"  I   want  to  stop  the  whole  wretched  business,"  said 
Professor  Stuart  as  he  turned  away  sadly. 

The  agent  and  the  magistrate  then  went  up  the  hill  to 
another  little  hut  to  demand  possession,  but,  on  the  priest 
interfering,  it  was  found  that  the  warrant  was  directed  to 
a  widow  who  had  lately  died,  instead  of  to  her  three 
Kiaughters,  who  were  now  the  tenants  ;  and  the  magistrate 
descended  to  the  road  in  disgust,  amid  the  shouts  of  the 
bystanders,  and  marched  the  constables  quickly  back 
again  to  the  hotel. 

One  of  the  officials  who  had  watched  the  scene 
throughout,  expressed  what  seemed  to  be  the  general 
opinion  :  "  Any  settlement  almost  would  be  for  the 
benefit  of  the  landlord  :  for,  in  the  first  place,  he  will  get 
some  money  down,  and  then  the  combination  would  be 
broken,  and  a  great  many  will  pay  who  dare  not  do  so 
under  the  'Plan  of  Campaign.'     The  postmistress  here, 


IN  ULSTER.  225 

for  example,  would  be  glad  to  pay,  for  if  she  were  turned 
out  she  would  lose  her  situation." 

A  neighboring  hill-top  was  black  with  people,  watching 
our  doings,  for  the  priest  had  forbidden  them  to  come 
any  nearer.  A  mile  from  the  hotel  they  met  us,  a  great 
crowd,  clamorous  and  excited.  In  a  moment  the  priest 
stopped  his  car,  and  was  standing  on  a  low  stone  wall, 
with  the  English  visitors  beside  him.  In  the  hush  that 
followed.  Professor  Stuart  began  to  speak  :  "  I  only  wish 
there  were  a  continuous  stream  of  Englishmen  coming 
here.  An  eviction  in  England  is  merely  a  house-flitting  ; 
it  is  not  so  here.  Here  you  have  reclaimed  the  soil  and 
built  your  house,  and  are  turned  out  of  the  holding  you 
have  made  productive.  In  England  a  farm  is  let  with 
the  house  and  out-houses  already  built  ;  here  you  make 
the  land  itself  out  of  the  rock,  and  when  you  improve  it 
the  landlord  raises  the  rent."  (A  Catholic  curate  beside 
me  admitted  this  was  not  true  now.)  "  When  the  English 
people  understand  that  they  will  turn  out  Lord  Salisbury 
and  bring  in  Mr.  Gladstone. 

"  I  would  suggest  that  if  Colonel  Dobbing  took  a  sail 
to  Tory  Island  to-morrow,  and  then  a  few  storms  arose, 
no  one  here  would  feel  any  particular  pain. 

"  From  seven  o'clock  we  have  been  making  offers  and 
they  have  been  refused.  I  offered  to  pay  the  present 
year's  rent,  with  certain  reductions,  if  all  arrears  were 
wiped  out,  and  the  evictions  stayed.  Many  an  English 
landlord  would  be  delighted  to-day  if  he  got  such  an 
offer.  These  evictions  will  sound  in  the  ears  of  Eng- 
land, and  it  will  be  said  the  landlord  had  an  offer  and 
refused  it. 

"  It  is  a  crime  to  evict,  but  it  is  a  bigger  crime  to  send 
people  to  the  workhouse  or  make  them  emigrate.    It  will 


226  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

be  sand  in  the  eyes  and  vinegar  in  the  mouth  of  the 
landlords  if  you  build  the  evicted  tenants  houses  on  the 
land  and  keep  them  there." 

"  I  say,"  continued  Mr,  Beal,  an  unsuccessful  candi- 
date for  M.P.  for  St.  Pancras,  London,  "  I  say  that  any 
man  who  says  that  Home  Rule  means  Separation,  says  a 
black  and  infamous  lie.  Is  it  Home  Rule  you  want  or 
Separation  ?  "  (A  voice  :  "  Home  Rule,  not  Separa- 
tion !  ")  "  I  can  now  say  I  have  seen  Irish  Nationalists 
and  they  do  not  want  Separation. 

"  Then,  again,  the  smallest  outrage  will  be  magnified  a 
thousand-fold  by  the  jealous  lenses  of  the  Tory  party,  so 
commit  no  outrages.  Those  who  have  justice  on  their 
side  need  not  break  the  law.  Let  the  Tory  government 
break  the  law,  as  they  did  at  Mitchelstown." 

Up  spoke  Mr.  S.,  the  secretary  of  the  London  Liberal 
and  Radical  Union  :  "  I  have  seen  the  monstrous  in- 
humanity of  your  landlords  :  but  the  Liberal  party  has 
put  its  hand  to  the  plough,  and  will  not  draw  it  back 
until  Home  Rule  is  won.  /  want  England  also  to  have 
Home  Rule,  and  London  too." 

Large  raindrops  began  to  fall,  and  the  people  were 
dismissed  by  Father  McFadden.  "  We  are  about  being 
evicted  by  the  weather.  You  will  keep  the  principles 
you  have  observed  the  last  few  days.  It  is  abominable 
to  have  these  atrocities  carried  out  in  a  hidden  way,  and 
you  are  justified  in  attending  them.  Three  evictions  re- 
main in  the  body  of  the  parish.  If  they  come  off  we  will 
meet  to-morrow  without  fear  of  the  proclamations,  which 
are  not  worth  the  paper  they  are  written  on.  Be  satisfied 
of  this. 

"  The  full  rents  Captain  Hill  will  never  be  able  to  ob- 
tam  :  not  even  with  the  English  fleet  by  sea  and  the 


7-  IN  ULSTER.  22.7 

army  by  land.  It  is  impossible.  And  of  the  costs  he 
will  never  get  one  farthing.  We  will  never  do  the  impos- 
sible ;  we  will  never  do  the  unreasonable. 

"  To-day  the  agent  went  up  the  hill  to  that  hut  and 
was  going  to  pull  it  down  without  a  legal  warrant.  That 
is  the  sort  of  man  you  have  to  deal  with.  In  our  absence 
he  would  ride  rough-shod  over  the  people." 

The  rest  of  the  speech  was  in  Irish.  The  meeting 
closed  with  cheers  for  a  constable  who,  the  day  before, 
had  refused  to  obey  an  order  to  load. 

From  Father  McFadden  some  further  facts  about  these 
evictions  were  obtained.  Margaret  Doughan,  evicted  to- 
day, had  been  evicted  before,  and  was  in  as  caretaker. 
Her  rent  was  twenty-five  shillings,  and  the  legal  costs 
were;^4  17.^.  4^'.' 

Seventy-three  tenants  had  gone  into  court  to  get  judi- 
cial rents  fixed.  The  rents  due  from  sixty-nine  of  these 
tenants  amounted  to  ^156  4.$'.  i^.,  which  arrears  brought 
up  to  ;^235  4^-.  331/.,  and  the  rental  fixed  by  the  court 
was  ^95  6s. 

In  the  evening  a  neighboring  farmer  was  talking  about 
a  proposal  made  by  Father  McFadden  to  buy  the  prop- 
erty for  ten  years'  purchase  of  two  thirds  of  the  annual 
rent.  "  I  would  give  twelve  years'  purchase  of  a  fair 
rent,  but  not  over  ten  years'  purchase  of  the  present 
rents,  which  would  make  our  annual  payments  forty  per 
cent,  of  what  we  pay  now.     I  can't  make  more  than  that. 

"  Many  of  the  people,  though,  will  not  be  satisfied  with 
any  thing.  They  seem  to  want  the  landlord  to  plough 
the  land  and  pay  them  for  digging  the  potatoes. 

'  Sheriff's  fee  when  the  writ  was  lodged,  .  £\  \s.  dJ. 
Execution  fee         .....  ^i. 
Costs  in  court :  solicitor's  fee  .  £2  15J.  10^. 


228  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  The  cause  of  the  agitation  is  simply  that  prices  have 
fallen  to  half  what  they  were.  Five  years  ago,  in  1882, 
the  people  would  have  been  glad  to  give  twenty  years' 
purchase  of  the  land,  now  they  would  hardly  be  satisfied 
with  ten. 

*'  Good  landlords  are  treated  now  no  better  than  the 
bad,  because  before  the  Land  Act  they  all  acted  as  a 
body,  whenever  the  tenants  tried  to  improve  their  posi- 
tion, and  because  since  the  Land  Act,  instead  of  being 
as  kind  to  their  tenants  as  before,  the  good  landlords 
have  become  stubborn  and  enforced  all  their  legal  rights 
to  the  utmost,  until  they  have  all  the  tenants  set  against 
them. 

"  The  settlement  of  the  land  question  would  not  stop 
the  agitation  for  Home  Rule,  but  it  would  take  the  edge 
off  it.  One  has  been  the  feeder  for  the  other.  We  are 
bound  up  with  England,  and  would  be  injured  by  any 
thing  like  separation. 

"  My  hopes  for  the  future  rest  on  the  fact  that  the  peo- 
ple are  gaining  so  rapidly  in  intelligence  and  education, 
and  that  the  things  that  in  the  past  caused  ill-feeling  are 
disappearing,  and  will  be  avoided  in  the  future." 

ABOUT    FALCARRAGH. 

Falcarragh,  or  Cross  Roads,  is  a  little  fishing  village  on 
the  bleak  Donegal  coast,  opposite  Tory  Island,  one  long 
street  of  two-storied,  slated,  stone  houses.  These  houses 
were  built  twenty  years  ago,  when  times  were  good,  and 
give  the  place  an  air  of  prosperity  that  is  perhaps  mis- 
leading. So  at  least  Father  Stephens  seemed  to  think, 
the  sturdy,  athletic  young  curate,  who  has  since  been  im- 
prisoned under  the  "Crimes  Act." 

"  Five  or  six  years  ago/'  he  said,  "  ;i^i,ooo  a  week  was 


IN  ULSTER.  229 

paid  in  this  parish  for  bog  ore.  The  carters  used  to 
spend  their  money  freely,  and  as  many  as  ten  ships  at  a 
time  were  owned  here  in  this  one  industry.  That  busi- 
ness has  died  out. 

"  The  kelp  trade  also  is  going.  Kelp  once  fetched  ;£z 
a  ton,  instead  of  thirty  shillings,  and  now  there  is  only 
one  buyer  of  kelp  here  where  there  used  to  be  three  or 
four. 

"  The  fall  in  prices  has  further  impoverished  us.  Half 
the  pigs  were  driven  home  again  from  the  last  great  pig 
fair,  for  no  money  could  be  got  for  them.  Oats  that  sold 
for  a  shilling  a  stone  are  selling  now  for  sixpence. 

"  All  the  men  here  go  to  Scotland  as  harvesters,  and 
the  price  of  labor  has  fallen.  The  children  over  ten 
years  of  age  go  out  to  service  to  the  farmers  in  the  Lag- 
gan,  the  grazing  district  between  Letterkenny,  Lifford, 
and  Derry.  The  children  are  sent  in  droves  to  the  spring 
hiring-fair  at  Letterkenny,  and  the  farmers,  Scotch  Pres- 
byterians, examine  them  as  they  would  animals,  and  pay 
for  them  according  to  their  condition. ' 

"  The  landlords  here  were  very  niggardly.  Twenty 
years  ago  there  was  n't  a  church  or  a  school  in  the  town, 
for  the  landlords  would  n't  give  us  land  to  build  on. 
Finally  one  gentleman,  Daniel  Sweeney,  twelve  years 
ago,  gave  us  land  for  a  schoolhouse  and  a  church  too, 
and  he  was  so  boycotted  by  the  neighboring  gentry  that 
he  had  to  go  away. 

"  The  great  act  of  tyranny  was  the  taking  of  the  moun- 
tain pastures  from  the  people.  They  used,  from  time 
immemorial,  to  send  their  beasts  to  the  mountains  ;  but 
thirty   years   ago   the   landlords   combined  to  take  the 

'  Such  hiring-fairs  were  once  common  throughout  the  country,  and 
even  in  England.     They  are  simply  the  survival  of  an  old  custom. 


230  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

mountains  from  them  and  let  them  to  Scotch  graziers. 
Many  of  the  sheep  disappeared,  probably  from  the  sever- 
ity of  the  weather,  for  it  is  the  custom  here  to  winter  the 
sheep  in  the  kitchens.  The  landlords  then  applied  to  the 
grand  juries  to  have  taxes  assessed  on  the  county  for  ma- 
licious injury,  and  thousands  of  pounds  were  taken  from 
the  poor  people,  who  have  not  yet  recovered. 

''  We  want  Home  Rule,  for  that  will  develop  our  in- 
dustries. What  is  needed  is  capital.  No  one  will  invest 
now,  but  as  soon  as  the  agitation  ceases,  as  it  will  under 
Home  Rule,  money  will  come  here  in  abundance." 

After  service  in  the  beautiful  large  stone  church,  I 
went  to  the  weekly  meeting  of  the  National  League,  in  a 
large  barnlike  room.  Father  Stephens  presided  over 
an  assembly  of  earnest-looking  farmers.  Resolutions 
were  adopted  sympathizing  with  the  tenantry  of  Gwee- 
dore  ;  and  then  the  good  Father  urged  all  present  to  file 
without  delay  notices  under  the  new  Land  Act,  and  gave 
advice  to  all  who  asked  it,  usually  farmers  served  with 
writs,  who  did  not  know  what  their  rights  were  or  what 
to  do. 

For  a  long  time  we  sat  and  chatted.  Said  one  farmer, 
like  the  rest  in  rough,  warm  home-spun  :  "  Children 
from  seven  to  ten  years  old  go  to  Letterkenny  for  from 
sixteen  shillings  to  a  pound  for  the  six  summer  months. 
There  is  not  a  man  here  who  has  n't  been  through  this." 

"Olphert,  the  landlord  here,"  chimed  in  another, 
"  would  not  give  any  land  for  a  church,  and  would  n't 
allow  any  house  in  Falcarragh  to  be  used  for  a  school." 

"  The  people  here  usually  wear  lapins,  stockings  with- 
out soles." 

"  We  have  n't  any  coin  at  all  here  most  of  the  time ; 
for  six  months  in  the  year  the  only  currency  is  eggs." 


IN  ULSTER.  231 

George  Brewster  owns  the  hotel  and  several  houses. 
I  asked  him  how  Falcarragh  came  to  look  so  prosperous  ? 
"  Why,"  said  he,  "  some  years  ago  I  made  as  much  as 
;^i,2oo  from  the  bog  ore,  which  is  now  all  used  up. 
Many  of  these  houses  were  built  then.  With  few  excep- 
tions, however,  American  or  Australian  money  builds  the 
houses  in  Ireland.  That  pine  house  with  the  Welsh  tiles 
was  built  by  a  man  who  is  indeed  a  publican,  but  he 
got  the  money  to  build  it  from  his  brother  in  Australia." 

"Ah  !  "  said  an  old  farmer,  "  a  farm  by  the  sea-shore 
that  could  pay  ^£2^  a  few  years  since  cannot  make  ^15 
rent  now.  Flax  is  ;£2  is.  a  hundredweight.  I  saw  it 
sold  for  thirty  shillings  last  Friday  in  Letterkenny,  and 
in  i860,  at  Cookstown,  I  saw  seventeen  shillings  paid  for 
a  stone.  Corn  used  to  be  sixteen  shillings  a  stone  ;  it  is 
now  from  four  to  six  shillings.  I  have  two  cattle  I 
bought  seven  months  ago  for  ;^i2,  and  if  any  man  will 
give  me  ^^lo  for  them  now  he  can  have  them,  though 
the  six  months'  grass  is  worth  at  least  thirty  shillings." 

The  next  day  muffled  horses  were  being  walked  up 
and  down  the  street  by  diminutive  jockeys,  and  the  little 
town  was  crowded  with  excited  farmers  and  fishermen, 
for  it  was  the  day  of  the  autumn  horse  races.  The  races 
were  announced  to  take  place  in  a  large  level  field  offered 
by  Mr.  Olphert  ;  but  early  in  the  morning  the  crowds 
were  addressed  by  Father  Stephens  and  Father  McFad- 
den  of  Gweedore.  "  The  landlords  must  be  boycotted," 
they  shouted  ;  "  the  races  must  be  run  on  the  shore,  and 
twenty  pounds  of  the  League  funds  will  be  given  as 
prizes."  The  jockeys  cursed,  but  obeyed,  and  the  horses 
galloped  and  slipped  on  the  broad,  flat  sands,  where  the 
sea-water  lingered  in  an  infinity  of  pools  and  runlets, 
while  the  people  cheered  lustily — weather-beaten  Tory- 


232  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

Islanders,  farmers  in  gray  home-spun  coats,  and  women 
with  picturesque  red  shawls  and  petticoats.  In  the  even- 
ing pandemonium  reigned,  and  "  poteen." 

WITH    A    DRUMMER    IN    DONEGAL. 

Such  a  jollv,  stout,  rosy-faced  fellow  was  McCarthy, 
now  on  his  third  trip  through  Donegal  this  year,  a  drum- 
mer for  tea,  sugar,  drapery,  spirits,  and  cordials,  and  to 
crown  all,  a  life  insurance  agent  as  well.  "  I  know  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  Donegal,"  he  cried,  as  he 
slapped  me  on  the  back.  "  Up  with  your  bag  on  my  car, 
and  off  with  me  to  Creeslough."  Away  we  drove,  up  hill 
and  down,  by  bleak  inlets  of  the  sea  and  stony  valleys, 
every  view  dominated  by  Muckish,  that  lumbering  moun- 
tain, with  its  "  pig-shaped  back  "  capped  with  snow. 
Hail  fell  viciously  as  we  passed  a  great  stone  workhouse, 
and  reached  neat,  picturesque  Dunfanaghy. 

"  This  country  is  rich  in  natural  wealth,"  said  the 
drummer,  as  he  flicked  meditatively  at  the  pony's  tail. 
"  In  Erigal  there  is  indigo,  good  for  making  blue-balls 
and  for  dyeing  the  cloth  the  natives  weave.  Silver  is 
found  there  too.  In  Muckish  there  is  some  of  the  finest 
flint-glass  sand  in  the  world.  The  gray  and  red  granite 
there  is  equal  to  Aberdeen  granite.  Only  Mr.  Olphert's 
exorbitant  demands  prevented  a  London  company  from 
building  a  tramway  to  get  it.  How  the  country  v/ould 
be  benefited  by  granite  works,  for  the  pottle  needed  for 
the  polishing  would  make  a  distillery  profitable  ! 

"All  along  the  coast  is  found  Carrigan  moss,  used 
medicinally,  and  in  Germany  turned  to  account  in  finish- 
ing collars  and  linen  fronts.  There  is  a  buyer  of  the 
moss  in  Derrybeg,  who  ships  it  to  Derry  and  thence  to 
Germany. 


IN  ULSTER.  233 

**  From  the  kelp  on  the  shore  they  make  iodine  and 
potash,  and  the  refuse  does  for  manure.  The  importa- 
tion of  iodine  from  South  America  has  lowered  the 
price,  but  it  is  rising  now,  as  that  supply  is  failing. 

"  The  water  power  of  Donegal  is  so  great,  and  labor 
here  so  cheap,  that  in  the  manufacture  of  flannels  and 
tweeds  our  people  could  compete  with  the  world  ;  and 
the  sea-weed  furnishes  the  finest  dyes  imaginable. 

"  The  fisheries  should  be  encouraged  by  loans  from 
the  government  for  the  purchase  of  better  gear.  The 
fishermen  need  smacks  to  go  out  to  the  banks,  for,  with 
ordinary  boats,  they  have  to  run  in  and  leave  their  nets 
at  the  least  storm." 

We  are  passing  now  through  the  beautiful  demesne  of 
Stuart  of  Ards,  seven  miles  from  gate  to  gate.  Magnifi- 
cent forests  of  oak  and  fir  fringe  the  road  ;  and  at  every 
turning  one  catches  a  glimpse  of  many-cornered  Muckish 
or  of  the  glancing  waters  of  Sheep  Haven,  and  the  bleak 
coast  beyond  ;  but  every  thing  has  fallen  into  melancholy 
ruin  :  the  leaves  are  ankle-deep  in  the  paths  ;  gigantic 
trees  lie  uprooted  by  the  roadside  ;  while  countless  gray 
rabbits  are  merrily  leaping  in  the  thick  brown  ferns. 
Past  large  farm  buildings,  a  little  village  in  itself,  we  turn 
up  a  steep  road  towards  the  tiny  village  of  Creeslough. 
A  keen  wind  blows  tempestuously  from  the  Atlantic  as 
we  mount  the  long  flight  of  wooden  steps  to  the  hotel  of 
Edward  Lafferty,  as  he  stands  expectant,  twenty-six 
stone  of  good-natured  hospitality,  by  the  side  of  a  large 
fuschia  bush  still  in  full  bloom. 

The  drummer  and  the  landlord,  who  is  a  farmer  as 
well,  talked  long  and  earnestly.  "  The  country  is  really 
bankrupt,"  said  McCarthy.  "  Every  one  is  in  debt  to  the 
banks. 


234  I^  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  The  farmers  borrowed  largely  in  the  good  times,  and 
put  all  the  money  into  the  land.  Prices  have  fallen 
since,  and  now  the  largest  farm  does  n't  make  the  inter- 
est of  the  money  spent  upon  it.  The  merchants  for 
years  have  been  supporting  the  landlords.  Here  I  know 
all  the  debts,  and  the  poorer  the  country  is  the  deeper  it 
is  in  debt.  Along  the  coast  of  Donegal  there  is  not  a 
village  where  there  is  not  three  thousand  pounds  out- 
standing, and  if  the  farms  were  sold  the  proceeds  would 
not  meet  the  indebtedness. 

"  Stir-about  and  potatoes  are  what  the  people  live  on. 
All  they  buy  from  the  shopkeepers  is  tea  and  drapery. 
The  blue  cloth  cloaks  are,  indeed,  of  West  of  England 
manufacture,  but  the  friezes  they  wear  about  Gweedore 
are  home-made." 

"  Yes,"  said  Lafferty,  "  I  agree.  There  is  at  least 
;!^3,ooo  out  in  Creeslough  and  more  in  Dunfanaghy. 
The  banks  have  at  last  become  shy  of  lending,  except  on 
the  best  security.  They  pay  one  and  a  quarter  per  cent. 
on  ;^2oo,  and  less  on  larger  deposits,  and  they  charge 
the  people  seven  per  cent,  for  the  use  of  it." 

"  It  is  morally  impossible,"  was  their  conclusion,  "for 
the  land  now  to  support  the  people  living  on  it.  No  re- 
mission of  rent  will  help  that,  especially  where  the  peo- 
ple have  never  depended  on  the  land  but  on  kelp-picking 
and  going  out  to  service.  In  Gweedore  the  people  are 
not  able  to  live  two  months  on  what  they  get  from  the 
land,  and  it  is  the  same  all  along  the  coast.  In  Donegal 
the  people  will  never  be  able  to  live  unless  they  get  em- 
ployment, but  here  are  fisheries  and  water-power.  Indus- 
tries must  be  encouraged  by  the  government ;  and  in  the 
greater  part  of  the  country  no  good  can  be  done  except 
by  protection  duties.     The  same  thing  is  true  of  England 


IN  ULSTER.  235. 

and  Scotland.  The  expense  of  labor  has  been  increasing 
and  the  price  of  the  product  has  been  decreasing  so  fast 
that  protection  has  become  necessary. 

"  Cattle  are  not  paying.  Flax  has  gone  down.  The 
people  have  fallen  back  on  pigs,  and  they  are  very  low. 
Pigs  are  the  last  resort,  the  people's  little  savings-banks. 
Oats  are  i^\d.  a  stone,  7^/.  for  the  best,  and  they  used  to 
be  \(id.  and  17^.  Sheep  sell  fairly.  The  people  cannot 
pay  the  shopkeepers,  who  give  them  a  year  or  more, 
while  they  get  only  three  or  four  months'  grace  themselves. 
The  big  farmers  are  losing  all  the  time,"  continued  the 
drummer  ;  "  the  only  restraining  power  at  present  is  the 
medium-sized  farms,  what  a  man  can  cultivate  himself 
without  outside  labor." 

"  How  large  would  that  be  ?  "  I  enquired. 

"A  man  with  two  sons  and  two  daughters,"  replied 
Lafferty,  "  could  cultivate  from  ten  to  twenty  acres." 

"If  we  had  no  rent,"  he  said  further,  "we  might  live. 
A  mountain  farmer  with  ^4,  if  the  potatoes  failed,  could 
buy  meal  for  his  pigs  and  be  still  a  pound  to  the  good  ; 
next  year  he  would  have  more.  Two  pounds  are  a  great 
deal  to  a  poor  country  farmer.  In  May  such  a  man  can 
often  not  get  a  bit  of  meal,  and  an  extra  pound  or  two 
would  tide  him  over  till  the  potatoes  came.  I  believe,  in 
time,  things  will  find  their  own  level.  No  change  of 
government  is  necessary,  except  to  one  that  will  develop 
the  industries  of  the  country." 

The  last  thing  I  heard  that  night  was  the  voice  of  Mc- 
Carthy in  the  next  room  shouting  :  "  It  was  a  good  thing 
that  Gladstone  did  not  buy  out  the  landlords  ;  the  failure 
of  that  bill  has  been  the  salvation  of  the  country  !  " 

The  next  morning  early  we  started  again  on  our 
rounds.     One   view  was   beautiful    exceedingly,    where 


236  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

from  a  high  mountain  road  we  looked  down  on  the  an- 
cient, weather-stained  Castle  of  Dove,  seated  on  the 
beach  of  a  winding  inlet  of  the  sea,  with  golden  strands 
jutting  by  it  far  into  the  water,  behind  it  yellowing  woods, 
and  in  front  the  bare,  gray  headland  of  Derg. 

On  the  hillside  an  old  man  was  digging  potatoes  ;  we 
called  to  him  and  went  into  his  hut  to  try  to  sell  him 
some  tea.  No  sign  was  on  the  door,  but  one  of  the  side 
rooms  was  a  tiny  shop,  where  eggs,  butter,  pipes  and  to- 
bacco were  lying  promiscuously  on  dingy  shelves, 
"  There  is  coal  in  this  locality,"  grumbled  our  host,  "  but 
the  landlords  won't  let  it  be  worked,  for  they  claim  the 
mines  and  all  minerals.  They  can't  open  them  them- 
selves for  three  fourths  of  them  are  bankrupt.  The 
country  won't  be  opened  up  till  we  have  Home  Rule." 

"  Lord  Leitrim  has  done  some  good,"  suggested  the 
drummer.  ^'  He  built  the  houses  at  Dunfanaghy  and 
Creeslough.  He  made  that  fine  market-place  at  Crees- 
lough,  and  started  the  steamer  from  Milltown." 

But  the  farmer  was  in  a  pessimistic  mood.  ''  The 
steamer  has  ruined  the  country.  It  has  encouraged  the 
farmers  to  sell  very  cheap.  It  has  left  Milltown  without 
a  penny.  It  takes  away  the  little  provision  of  the  peo- 
ple. Many  a  man  who  has  a  market  is  better  wanting  it. 
As  to  the  market-place  in  Creeslough  it  has  done  no 
good,  no  one  used  it,  and  it  was  n't  opened  at  all  this 
year. 

"  There  is  nothing  for  the  laborers  to  do.  A  laboring 
man  in  Milltown  told  me  the  other  day  he  always  got 
employment  till  this  steamer  came. 

"  What  is  wanted  is  employment  and  opportunity  to 
earn  money. 

**  Things  are  getting  worse  every  year.     Land  at  the 


IN  ULSTER.  237 

present  time  is  not  worth  any  rent.  Flax  is  the  only  thing 
that  sells  at  all.  Potatoes  are  a  good  crop,  but  oats  are 
too  low  to  be  worth  threshing.  For  eggs  we  pay  only  Zd. 
a  dozen,  and  eggs  are  depended  upon  to  support  the 
house." 

"  They  are  shipped  to  Glasgow  chiefly,"  suggested  the 
drummer,  "  for  they  expect  larger  eggs  in  England  than 
we  raise.  Well,"  he  added,  *'  I  never  found  it  so  hard  to 
get  money.  Tea  is  cheap.  Can  I  do  any  thing  for  you  ?  " 

"  I  can  get  good  tea  at  Milltown  for  two  shillings  a 
pound,"  was  the  only  answer,  but  the  drummer  spread 
out  his  little  packages  of  samples  on  the  table,  and  the 
farmer's  wife  began  to  inspect  them  minutely,  rubbing 
the  little  black  grains  between  her  palms,  and  biting  and 
sniffing  at  them  with  an  air  of  extreme  intelligence. 

In  the  next  house  we  stopped  at  I  listened  sympatheti- 
cally to  a  long  complaint  about  the  rights  of  the  tenants 
to  a  strip  of  salt  meadow  by  the  waterside,  now  claimed 
by  the  landlord  ;  and  thence  we  hastened  to  the  house  of 
the  parish  priest,  an  elderly  gentleman,  with  the  most 
polished  and  amiable  manners  in  the  world. 

"  Ten  acres,"  he  said,  as  he  poured  us  out  some  whis- 
key, "  is  the  average  size  of  a  farm  about  here,  including 
arable  and  grazing  land,  but  some  have  only  an  acre 
or  an  acre  and  a  half  to  two  acres  and  a  half  arable 
land. 

"  Lord  Leitrim  is  the  principal  landlord,  and  the  rents 
are  high.  I,  for  one,  pay  ^6  7^.  for  six  statute  acres  on 
Cochrane's  property,  and  for  a  farm  of  eight  acres  near 
by  a  widow  pays  ^^8  icy.  I  have  a  right  of  commonage 
of  ten  or  fifteen  acres  on  the  mountain,  but  it  would  n't 
pay  to  put  cattle  there. 

"  The  rents  are  often  kept  up  by  people  who  come  back 


238  JN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

from  America  and  pay  three  or  four  times  the  value  of 
the  land  for  a  farm  to  die  on. 

"  The  people  raise  a  little  oats,  flax,  and  potatoes. 
Oats  and  flax  are  very  low  ;  flax  from  here  sold  a  fort- 
night ago  for  two  shillings  and  eight  pence  a  stone  at 
Letterkenny.  Very  few  use  oatmeal ;  they  usually  get  In- 
dian meal,  and  often  feed  the  pigs  on  it.  A  cow  or  two 
is  often  kept.  Cash  is  got  only  from  pigs  and  butter  and 
eggs.  A  little  flannel  is  woven  here,  but  no  tweed.  There 
is  some  fishing  of  flat  fish,  sole,  and  cod,  but  only  near 
shore  and  from  '  corraghs,'  of  which  some  th'rty  are 
owned  in  the  parish. 

"  My  people  go  out  to  service,  not  so  much  to  the  Lag- 
gan  as  to  Milltown  and  Rathmelton,  but  only  for  the 
summer  months.  There  is  not  much  suffering  here,  if  you 
think  people  who  live  on  dry  potatoes  don't  suffer,  for 
few  eat  butter  except  in  winter,  and  meat  or  fowl  only 
once  or  twice  a  year. 

''  The  widow  who  pays  ^8  \os.  is  going  into  court. 
The  landlord  offered  to  make  it  ;^6,  but  I  would  n't  let 
her  accept  it,  it  was  too  much  ;  and  yet  the  land  is  con- 
sidered good  land.  The  rents  all  along  the  coast  would 
not  have  been  paid  for  the  last  twenty-five  years  but  for 
American  money. 

Lord  Leitrim's  steamer  instead  of  doing  harm  has  been 
useful  to  this  parish.  We  had  to  go  to  Milltown,  four- 
teen or  fifteen  miles  off,  to  get  a  market ;  now  we  have 
one  at  our  doors.  A  chicken  used  to  sell  for  twopence, 
now  it  brings  eightpence. 

"  A  Purchase  Bill  would  help  the  people,  but  slowly, 
for  what  they  need  is  employment,  the  encouragement  of 
industries,  the  opening  up  of  the  country.  Whether  this 
would  be  broueht  about  by  Home   Rule,  I  don't  know. 


IN  ULSTER.  239 

There  is  a  sentiment  in  favor  of  it,  but  I  have  no  positive 
opinion.  It  may  be  said  that  our  laws  are  now  made 
chiefly  by  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen." 

Many  were  the  anecdotes  that  my  companion  poured 
into  my  willing  ears  as  we  drove  rapidly  along  the  dark- 
ening roads.     These  are  samples  : 

"  On  Rutland  Island  there  used  to  be,  before  1848,  a 
sailors'  home,  salt-pans,  a  custom-house,  and  a  town  as 
large  as  Falcarragh,  for  a  great  herring  fishery  was  car- 
ried on  there,  and  one  could  pass  from  one  island  to 
another  on  the  decks  of  fishing  vessels.  One  year  not  a 
fish  was  to  be  seen,  and  now  fishermen  have  to  go  out  to 
sea,  outside  of  Aran  Island,  beyond  the  course  of  the 
Anchor  Line  steamers. 

"  A  Major  Barton  has  a  property  at  Greenfield,  in 
Feenit.  The  charges  on  it  are  so  great  as  to  leave  him 
little  or  no  surplus  now,  and  as  twenty  per  cent,  reduc- 
tion will  probably  be  taken  off  under  the  new  Land  Act, 
he  could  n't  live  off  the  land,  though  even  that  reduction 
will  give  the  tenants  little  enough.  The  Major  is  a  magis- 
trate, but  he  is  now  starting  in  the  provision  and  whiskey 
trade,  and  I  have  his  opening  orders. 

"  Stuart  of  Ards  used  to  spend  an  immense  amount  of 
money  here,  and  provided  much  employment,  but  later 
on  he  got  into  difficulties,  through  no  fault  of  his  own, 
and  now  he  has  n't  been  seen  in  the  County  Donegal  for 
the  last  twelve  years." 

It  became  necessary  to  say  "  Good-bye  "  to  my  kind, 
energetic,  intelligent  friend.  "  Remember,"  he  said. 
"  that  the  farmers  cannot  be  bettered  so  long  as  present 
prices  continue,  even  as  peasant  proprietors,  and  the  only 
thing  that  can  improve  their  condition  is  a  protective 
tariff,  which  we  cannot  get  until  our  laws  are  made  by  a 
Home-Rule  Parliament  at  Dublin." 


240  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

A    MANUFACTURER    IN    COUNTY    TYRONE. 

As  one  travels  from  Donegal  to  Belfast,  the  signs  of 
industry  seem  to  increase  with  every  mile  of  the  way.  A 
little  village  I  came  to  one  evening,  that  was  nothing  but 
a  large  manufactory  ;  tidy  operatives,  cottages  clustered 
round  an  immense  flax-spinning  mill.  The  wealthy  owner 
of  the  mill  is  a  representative  Ulster  man  ;  a  devoted  Glad- 
stonian  in  the  days  of  the  Reform  Bill,  and  now  an  ardent 
Unionist,  a  practical  business  man,  and  successful,  though 
still  young.     He  began  by  speaking  about  Gweedore. 

"  The  average  rental  there  is  about  twenty-four  shil- 
lings, and  yet  Father  McFadden  has  made  all  this  row 
to  get  off  thirty-three  per  cent.,  an  average  of  eight  shil- 
lings a  year.     What  good  would  that  do  them  ? 

" '  Compulsory  land  purchase  is  necessary,'  said  a 
Catholic  Divisional  Magistrate  to  me  the  other  day,  '  to 
make  the  tenants  settle  down  in  peace.'  Now  local  guar- 
anties alone  can  make  purchase  practicable,  for  only  by 
some  such  system  will  any  pressure  be  put  on  a  man  by 
his  neighbors  to  make  him  pay  his  instalments.  Suppose 
that  in  one  electoral  division  there  are  ten  farmers  ;  if 
one  of  them  is  a  defaulter,  his  default  will  raise  the 
amount  payable  by  the  rest,  and  it  will  be  their  interest 
to  get  in  a  new  and  a  strong  man  in  his  place,  instead  of 
boycotting  any  new-comer.  You  suggest  that  a  guaran- 
ty involves  the  existence  of  a  surplus  fund  ;  but  there  is 
a  surplus  fund.  The  value  of  the  land  io  made  up  of  the 
tenants'  interest  and  the  landlords'  interest,  and  both  to- 
gether would  be  clearly  a  good  security  for  the  latter 
value  alone.  If  you  say  that  local  boards  will  often  re- 
fuse to  give  any  guaranty,  and  that  they  cannot  be  forced 
to,  the  answer  is  simple.  Don't  let  that  particular  local- 
ity purchase. 


IN  ULSTER.  241 

"  Some  of  the  landlords  will  suffer,  but  though  in  the 
north  they  are  a  superior  class,  in  the  south  and  west 
they  are,  many  of  them,  a  wretched  lot,  who  have  incomes 
of  only  three  or  four  hundred  pounds,  and  who  think  of 
nothing  but  amusing  themselves. 

"The  landlords  acted  patriotically  in  refusing  Glad- 
stone's Purchase  Bill.  They  would  n't  bring  the  country 
to  ruin  for  a  sop  of  that  sort.  There  is  plenty  of  land 
about  here  worth  twenty-two  years'  purchase,  and  most 
of  the  land  in  Ireland  is  worth  ten ;  but  there  are  little 
holdings  in  the  west,  bog  and  mountain,  that  it  would 
be  criminal  to  allow  the  tenants  to  buy  at  any  price. 
Twenty-two  years'  purchase  all  round  was  obviously 
unjust. 

"  Even  with  a  peasant  proprietary,  prosperity  is  not 
assured.  In  Belgium  the  most  fearful  rack-renting  exists  ; 
very  short  leases  are  usual  there,  and  just  as  soon  as  a 
small  tenant  improves,  his  rent  is  raised  ;  but  the  people 
don't  mind  that  so  much,  because  the  new  landlords  are 
of  their  own  class. 

"  The  first  thing  needed  is  the  opening  up  of  the  con- 
gested districts.  The  government  must  do  that,  whether 
it  pays  or  not.  The  government  has  been  too  niggardly, 
and,  as  in  the  Light  Railway  Act,  has  always  exacted  the 
strongest  guaranties  from  local  bodies.  In  opening  up 
the  country,  the  expense  ought  not  to  be  charged  to  the 
localities  immediately  benefited. 

"  The  desire  the  people  have  for  protection  is  very  un- 
fortunate. Ireland  is  not  rich  enough  to  consume  its 
own  manufactures  ;  we  shall  always  have  to  depend  on 
our  export  trade.  Under  protection  the  cost  of  neces- 
saries will  be  higher,  and  so  the  cost  of  labor.  This  is  a 
good  climate  for  manufacturing,  from  its  moisture  and 


242  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

even  temperature,  and  labor  is  very  cheap.  These  are 
our  only  advantages.  Cheap  labor  enables  us  to  sell  all 
over  Europe,  as  I  do  ;  but  if  we  had  protection  we 
could  n't  compete  abroad  at  all.  There  is  so  much  com- 
petition, as  it  is,  that  the  greatest  patience  and  persever- 
ance is  necessary  to  make  any  manufacture  successful, 
but  the  people  talk  as  though  they  could  jump  into 
manufacturing  at  one  bound. 

"  As  business  men,  we  are  here  absolutely  opposed  to 
Home  Rule.  The  Nationalists  may  want  to  encourage 
my  business,  but  every  idea  I  have  of  justice,  honesty, 
and  liberty  is  opposed  to  their  practices  and  principles. 
Our  opinion  ought  to  have  weight,  for  what  is  the  value 
to  a  country  of  a  lot  of  uncultivated,  ignorant  people  in 
comparison  with  an  educated,  industrious,  manufacturing 
class.  Gladstone's  bill  was  an  absurdity  in  proposing 
that  we  should  continue  to  contribute  to  the  imperial 
exchequer  and  yet  cease  to  take  any  part  in  imperial 
affairs.  We  are  determined  not  to  allow  ourselves  to  be 
separated  from  England.  To  my  mind  the  whole  thing 
is  now  completely  over.  All,  except  the  most  ignorant 
electors,  have  learnt  that  we  have  made  up  our  minds, 
and  that  it  is  impossible  to  force  a  division  upon  two 
million  of  the  most  industrious  and  wealthy  people  in 
the  country.  The  Irish  will  never  get  Home  Rule  with- 
out fighting  for  it,  and  they  don't  dare  to  fight.  I  feel 
sure  that  Ulster  would  fight,  if  a  Home-Rule  bill  were 
passed,  and  I  would  join  the  Ulster  men. 

"  Local  self-government  is  a  different  thing,  and  we 
believe  in  it.  Questions  about  railroads  and  water-sup- 
plies, and  local  or  private  bills  generally  should  be  passed 
upon  by  county  boards,  or  by  provincial  boards  sitting 
in  the  capital  of  each  province.     These  boards  could  not 


IN  ULSTER.  243 

be  purely  elective  at  the  outset,  but  should  be  ap- 
pointed. 

"  The  misery  of  the  west  and  south  is  largely  due  to 
its  being  a  Catholic  country.  I  do  not  venture  to  have 
more  than  half  my  workmen  Catholics  ;  if  I  had  more 
my  mills  would  soon  be  closed,  for  the  priests  would 
make  us  stop  work  on  saints'  days,  and  would  insist  on  all 
the  overseers  being  Catholics  by  threatening  to  strike  if 
we  refused.  Now  we  are  independent  of  them.  The 
priests  do  evil  that  good  may  come,  and  join  the  League, 
whose  principles  they  detest,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  their 
influence.  The  old  Catholic  curate  here  told  me  he  dis- 
approved of  the  League,  and  yet  now  he  makes  Nation- 
alist speeches  in  public. 

"  The  linen  trade  is  said  to  be  shaky,  but  in  fact  more 
looms  are  going  in  Ireland  now  than  ever  before,  and 
there  is  more  demand  for  labor.  It  is  true  that  the 
profits  of  the  capitalists  are  diminishing,  but  so  long  as 
the  labor  bills  are  as  they  were  there  is  no  loss  to  the 
community." 

CHANCE    ACQUAINTANCES    AT    DUNGANNON. 

Dungannon  is  a  well-built,  attractive  town,  the  centre 
of  an  agricultural  district,  and  on  that  account  deserted 
and  dead-and-alive  every  day  in  the  week  except  Thurs- 
day, the  market  day.  Then  the  streets  are  crowded  and 
the  shops  thronged.  In  the  large  square  before  the  Bel- 
fast Bank,  the  farmers  range  their  carts  along  the  cobble 
stones  that  line  each  side  of  the  road  ;  in  temporary 
booths  are  displayed  apples,  butter,  eggs,  crockery,  and 
plaster  images,  and  the  contents  of  the  shops  are  trans- 
ferred from  windows  to  stands  upon  the  sidewalk, — 
drapery,  joints  of  meat,  and  hardware. 


244  ^^   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

'*  This  town  is  half  Catholic  and  half  Protestant,"  said 
a  clergyman,  "  and  of  the  latter  half  are  Presbyterians. 
The  lowest  stratum  is  Catholic,  the  next,  chiefly  store- 
keepers, Presbyterian  and  Methodist,  and  the  gentry  and 
some  of  the  poorest  people  are  Church  of  Ireland. 

"  I  consider  that  Gladstone  is  a  traitor,  and  in  old 
times  would  have  been  hung  as  one.  In  the  event  of 
Home  Rule,  however,  I  don't  believe  there  would  be 
more  than  a  riot  in  Ulster,  and  not  a  very  serious  riot." 

"  I  would  die  rather  than  have  Home  Rule,"  exclaimed 
Mr.  Black,  the  genial  proprietor  of  a  comfortable  hotel, 
"yet  I  don't  think  there  will  be  a  real  rising  in  Ulster  ; 
and  while  many  rich  men  will  go  away,  their  places  will 
be  taken  by  Americans  with  money.  The  evil,  however, 
of  Home  Rule  will  in  the  long  run  be  greater  than  the 
good." 

"Where  I  live,"  broke  in  a  farmer  who  was  listening, 
"  in  twelve  townlands  there  are  only  forty-eight  Catho- 
lics. How  are  we  going  to  have  Home  Rule  there  ?  We 
won't   have  it." 

"  We  want  Home  Rule,"  replied  another  farmer,  "  be- 
cause prices  are  so  low.  The  Americans  are  sending  us 
cheap  cattle  and  grain.    We  want  a  tax  on  those  things." 

In  a  cosy  room,  Hursen,  the  owner  of  a  spirit  grocery 
and  Secretary  of  the  League,  a  neighboring  shopkeeper, 
and  Flanigan,  an  auctioneer  and  news  agent,  discussed 
freely  and  at  great  length  the  condition  and  needs  of 
Ireland.     This  was  what  was  said  : 

"  In  County  Fermanagh  the  Catholics  slightly  prepon- 
derate, and  we  expect  soon  to  return  all  Nationalist 
members  at  the  next  election.  In  Dungannon  the  ma- 
jority of  the  tradespeople  are  Unionists,  and  the  same  is 
true  of  Cookstown,  but  at  Strabane,  the  largest  town  in 


IN  ULSTER.  245 

the  county,  every  member  of  the  town  council  is  a  Na- 
tionalist. 

"Home  Rule  is  needed,"  said  Hursen, ''to  develop 
our  resources,  the  woollen  trade,  the  fisheries,  our  rivers 
and  harbors,  our  railroads,  which  should  be  owned  by 
the  government,  and  our  waste  lands,  which  should  be 
reclaimed.  We  also  want  a  final  settlement  of  the  land 
question,  and  the  establishment  of  a  peasant  proprietary. 

"  It  is  hard  to  get  finality.  Suppose  our  manufactures 
increase  and  laborers  multiply  ;  they  might  be  much 
tempted  by  the  theory  of  Henry  George  that  Davitt 
preaches.  However,  popular  as  Davitt  is,  the  farmers 
would  drag  him  off  the  platform  if  they  half  understood 
his  meaning." 

I  asked  if  the  Nationalists  would  try  to  make  a  good 
purchase  bill  successful. 

"  Many  farmers,"  he  replied,  ''  would  be  contented  if 
the  land  question  were  settled,  and  that  is  why  they  won't 
get  it  settled  till  Home  Rule  and  Land  Purchase  are 
given  us  together.  Home  Rule  will  never  be  granted 
unless  it  is  asked  for,  and  it  must  be  demanded  with  the 
same  persistency  and  determination.  We  are  not  all 
farmers,  remember,  and  how  about  the  men  who  are  not 
farmers,  who  are  the  cream  of  the  whole  country  and  the 
leaders  of  the  movement  ?  They  will  have  to  be  reckoned 
with.  Parnell  owes  his  great  reputation  largely  to  his 
not  having  formulated  the  demands  of  the  Irish  people. 
Look  at  his  position  towards  the  Land  Act  of  188 1.  If 
he  had  accepted  it  as  final,  how  could  he  have  demanded 
a  revision  of  the  judicial  rents  this  year?  He  is  quite 
right  in  throwing  on  the  other  side  the  task  of  making 
any  Land  Act  or  Purchase  Act  successful. 

"As  to  the  land,  I  think  we  have  done  very  well.    We 


246  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

have  certainly  a  tenure  superior  to  any  I  know  anywhere. 
I  do  not  look  on  the  landlords  as  a  class  better  or  worse 
than  any  other  class  in  the  country,  but  landlordism  has 
become  unworkable,  and  a  new  system  must  be  devised 
that  will  involve  fewer  interests. 

"  No  settlement  of  the  land  question  will  ever  settle 
me.  Every  thing  we  want  is  given  us  from  fear  and  not 
by  reason.  Catholic  Emancipation  was  to  avert  civil 
war.  The  first  Land  Act  was  passed  from  the  fear  of 
Fenianisrn,  and  the  last  one  to  satisfy  the  Unionists. 

"  However,  we  don't  object  to  England  because  she 
governs  us  badly,  but  because  she  governs  us  at  all.  My 
position  is  that  we  have  only  one  grievance — the  govern- 
ment of  Ireland  by  England.  That  is  the  whole  trouble. 
The  land  laws  of  this  country  are  indeed  vastly  better 
than  those  of  England  or  of  any  other  country.  Even 
Henry  George  admits  this." 

"  The  land  laws  good  !  "  shouted  Flanigan. 

"  '  A  decent  hat,  a  wife's  new  coat  or  gown 

For  higher  rent  may  mark  the  farmer  down  ; 
'Neath  your  cottage  window  cease  to  plant  a  rose, 
Lest  it  may  draw  the  prowling  bailiff's  nose. 
Beware  of  whitewash  lest  your  cottage  lie 
A  target  for  the  bullet  of  his  eye.' ' 

"  That  explains  why  the  tenants  do  not  make  out  of  the 
land  half  as  much  as  they  should  ;  the  fields  next  the 
road  they  never  used  to  cultivate  as  well  as  the  fields  at 
a  distance.  The  lying  and  dissimulation  that  these 
things  caused  have  not  been  grown  out  of  yet." 

"  Not  a  farmer  in  Ulster,"  chimed  in  our  third  com- 
panion, "is  able  to  pay  his  rents  out  of  the  profits 
of  the  farm.  The  land  of  Ulster  has  deteriorated  more 
'  William  Allingham. 


IN  ULSTER.  247 

than  that  of  any  other  province,  in  consequence  of  the 
culture  of  flax.  Flax  exhausts  the  soil ;  it  returns  no 
manure  to  it,  and  in  the  linseed  oil  extracts  a  quality 
that  seems  impossible  to  restore.  The  prosperity  of  Bel- 
fast is  momentary  and  shadowy,  based  as  it  is  on  the  flax 
culture,  for  every  year  the  flax  grows  poorer  and  weaker. 
They  manure  and  put  in  potatoes  and  grass,  and  cannot 
repeat  the  flax  with  safety  for  seven  years,  but  even  then 
it  never  comes  up  in  the  same  perfection." 

"I  don't  see,"  said  Hursen,  "that  the  contiguity  of 
Ireland  to  England  justifies  England  in  annexing  Ire- 
land, any  more  than  the  contiguity  of  England  to  France 
would  justify  France  in  annexing  England.  I  base  the 
demand  for  Home  Rule  on  the  ground  of  inalienable 
right.  Our  position  is  that  we  owe  no  loyalty  to  England, 
but  we  think  the  ruin  of  England  would  be  the  ruin  of 
Ireland,  and  we  do  not  desire  separation,  because  we 
need  England  as  a  market  for  our  goods,  and  we  wish  to 
keep  England  in  all  its  integrity  as  a  good,  big,  benefi- 
cent neighbor. 

"  From  a  military  point  of  view  the  empire  would  not 
be  endangered  by  Home  Rule.  I  believe  there  is  a  friend- 
ship growing  up  between  the  English  and  the  Irish  democ- 
racies. I  cannot  imagine  that  the  Irish  Parliament  would 
be  rich  enough  to  provide  defences,  forts,  guns,  navy, 
commissariat,  sufficient  to  protect  itself  from  surrounding 
nations.  I  don't  think  either  we  should  intrigue  with 
France  or  any  other  power.  It  would  n't  be  safe  to  rely 
on  French  help.  When  Parnell  went  to  France  to  enlist 
the  sympathy  of  Gambetta,  he  was. not  received,  from 
fear  of  international  difficulty,  it  was  said,  but  really,  I 
think,  from  contempt.  I  should,  too,  prefer  to  live  un- 
der English  than  under  French  rule. 


248  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  Resistance  by  Ulster  to  Home  Rule  is  absurd.  If 
the  Orangemen  resisted  they  would  have  to  beat  the  rest 
of  Ulster  before  attacking  the  other  provinces.  If  the 
Orangemen  cannot  beat  the  Nationalists  at  the  polls, 
how  can  they  expect  to  beat  them  in  the  field  ? 

"  These  people,  too,  are  beginning  to  lose  their  terror 
of  Home  Rule.  If  it  comes  they  v.-ill  take  advantage  of 
it,  just  as  they  took  advantage  of  the  Land  Act  of  i8Sr 
after  opposing  it. 

**  As  to  the  religious  question  :  the  people  are  leading 
the  priests,  not  led  by  them.  They  are  united  now, 
O'Connell  never  had  the  priests  with  him  as  Parnell  has. 
Some  Protestants  are  with  us  too.  The  president  of 
our  branch  is  Moffat,  a  Protestant  who  lived  long  in 
America. 

"  About  outrages  much  nonsense  is  talked.  The  peo- 
ple should  never  be  held  accountable  for  moonlighting, 
for  the  reason  that  they  have  not  the  making  of  their 
own  laws.  What  is  the  use  of  our  trying  to  rectify  the 
state  of  society,  when  we  are  not  paid  constables,  and 
when  those  very  acts  complained  of  have  been  the  means 
of  our  getting  the  greatest  benefits.  If  we  do  not  get 
Home  Rule  we  are  prepared  to  go  on  with  a  constant 
guerilla  warfare  till  the  crack  of  doom." 

It  is  time,  perhaps,  to  listen  to  a  landlord  who  has 
property  in  this  county  and  the  neighboring  one  of  Fer- 
managh. A  young  man,  of  an  old  Protestant  Orange 
family,  he  was  educated  abroad  and  early  adopted  lib- 
eral views,  but  as  soon  as  the  Home  Rule  Bill  was  intro- 
duced he  became  an  energetic  Unionist. 

"■  I  have,"  he  said,  "  a  typical  Ulster  property.  The 
mountains  are  inhabited  by  Catholics,  and  the  valleys  by 
Protestants.     When  a  tenant  fails  in  the  valley,  the  ten- 


IN  ULSTER.  249 

ant  right  can  be  sold  for  what  it  is  worth  ;  but  when  you 
go  up  into  the  hills  within  reach  of  the  League,  a  man 
who  fails  and  wants  to  sell  insists  on  being  evicted.  He 
allows  himself  to  be  evicted,  and  then  we  let  him  sell  if 
he  can.  I  have  a  tenant  in  that  mountainous  district^ 
a  drunkard,  who  went  about  collecting  money  for  the 
League.  He  did  n't  pay  any  rent,  so  I  evicted  him,  but 
reinstated  him  on  account  of  his  old  mother.  After  a 
time  I  asked  him  to  sell  out  ;  but  the  people  would  n't 
let  him.  I  kept  him  on  then  as  caretaker.  Soon  the 
Protestant  tenants  in  the  neighborhood  became  tremen- 
dously excited  about  something,  and  the  agent  overheard 
them  saying,  'A  nice  way  to  treat  decent  Protestants 
who  pay  rent !  That  Irish  Papist  blackguard  you  give 
three  years  to  and  reinstate  him.'  I  spoke  to  the  man 
and  he  said,  '  Shure,  if  I  did  n't  tell  the  people  about  it,  I 
could  n't  get  a  grazier  to  put  a  beast  on  the  land  at  all.' 
I  asked  the  neighbors  whether  any  one  would  take  the 
land  if  we  turned  the  man  out,  and  they  all  said  '  No.' 

"  Near  me  there  are  a  lot  of  small  farms  of  ten  or 
twenty  acres  on  the  slopes  of  the  mountains.  Formerly, 
with  the  help  of  his  sons  and  with  cheap  labor,  the  farmer 
reared  cows  and  pigs,  made  butter,  and  raised  oats 
and  potatoes,  and  so  paid  his  rent.  Now  labor  is  dear, 
and  the  young  men,  after  getting  a  national-school  educa- 
tion, go  into  the  constabulary  or  emigrate  ;  the  farmers 
cease  to  grow  potatoes  and  oats,  and  the  money  from 
the  calves  and  the  butter  goes  to  buy  Indian  meal,  etc., 
for  family  use.  So  things  get  worse  and  worse.  The 
style  of  living  has  changed  for  the  better,  perhaps,  but 
the  farmers  are  very  incompetent.  Such  incompetency 
would  be  impossible  under  landlordism  with  full  powers, 
and  probably  under  peasant  proprietorship.     Even  un- 


250  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

der  a  peasant  proprietary,  I  do  not  suppose  that  evic- 
tions will  die  out  wholly,  for  in  some  way  or  other  a  sys- 
tem will  be  devised  for  securing  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
instead  of  the  survival  of  the  unfittest,  which  is  the  case 
to-day. 

"  A  large  majority  of  the  landlords  would  accept  any 
reasonable  terms  of  purchase  now,  and  are  coming  to 
favor  a  purchase  scheme  more  and  more.  They  feel  that 
their  property  is  being  taken  from  them  slice  by  slice, 
and  they  would  rather  take  an  insufficient  sum  and  put 
an  end  to  their  losses.  In  Ulster  the  landlords  would 
rather  have  the  terms  of  purchase  fixed  by  private  con- 
tract, but  elsewhere  they  would  welcome  a  compulsory 
system  of  purchase.  The  Ulster  landlords  were  opposed 
to  the  Land  Acts,  because  they  were  getting  their  rents, 
and  all  the  landlords  were  opposed  to  a  reduction  of  the 
judicial  rents,  because  it  was  understood  when  these 
rents  were  first  fixed  that  they  were  to  be  a  basis  for  pur- 
chase. The  outcry  against  Gladstone's  Purchase  Bill 
was  justifiable,  because  it  was  associated  with  his  Home 
Rule  Bill,  and  the  Act  would  be  unworkable  under  Home 
Rule.  Under  Home  Rule  local  guaranties  would  be 
sure  to  be  repudiated,  but  they  might  answer  without 
Home  Rule,  as  in  India. 

"  There  is  a  conspiracy  here  amounting  to  rebellion. 
Certain  men  lead  it,  whose  language  shows  that  they  are 
animated  by  hatred  of  England,  and  that  they  are  work- 
ing for  what  they  hope  will  lead  to  separation.  In  speak- 
ing to  their  followers,  these  Parnellite  M.P.'s  say  that 
no  limits  can  be  set  to  the  march  of  the  nation.  Such 
speeches  show  the  insincerity  of  their  guaranties. 

"  Again,  historically,  the  Irish  Parliament  of  the 
eighteenth  century  proved  unworkable  ;  in  eighteen  years, 


IN  ULSTER.  251 

twice  coming  to  loggerheads  with  the  British  Parliament, 
and  yet  that  Parliament  was  exclusively  Protestant  and 
conservative,  and  now  it  is  proposed  to  start  a  Parlia- 
ment composed  of  the  men  most  hostile  to  England. 

"  I  read  over  Gladstone's  bill  carefully,  and  marked 
sixty-two  points  over  which  England  and  Ireland  were 
bound  to  come  to  a  violent  disagreement  within  two  or 
three  years. 

"  The  Nationalist  movement  here  is  a  Jacobin  move- 
ment, and  like  all  such  movements  must  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  extreme  party.  Compare  it  with  the  French 
revolutionary  movement,  the  analogy  is  close.  The 
priests  will  finally  split  from  it,  and  that  will  make  mat- 
ters worse. 

"The  rural  population  will  be  inclined  to  make  the 
best  of  things  at  first,  but  the  town  Protestants  will  be 
hard  to  reconcile  to  Home  Rule.  *  No  taxes  to  support 
nunneries,'  will  be  the  cry,  and  ultimately,  I  believe,  the 
north  will  be  arrayed  almost  solid  against  the  south." 

SOME    BELFAST    MERCHANTS. 

"I  am  a  moderate  man,"  said  a  merchant  of  great 
weight  and  reputation,  a  director  of  innumerable  com- 
panies,— "  I  am  a  moderate  man,  and  people  like  me  would 
see  Home  Rule  come  with  the  utmost  reluctance,  but 
would  not  actually  resist  till  the  Irish  Parliament  had 
abused  its  powers. 

"  Unfair  taxation  is  what  we  fear.  Some  Nationalists 
propose  a  general  poor-rate  for  the  whole  of  Ireland  ; 
that  would  be  a  gross  injustice  to  Belfast,  where  people 
have  something  to  lose. 

"  An  Irish  Parliament  would  be  likely  to  resort  to 
protection.     If  food  were  taxed,  that  would  press  severely 


252  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

on  the  artisans  ;  and  if  flax  were  taxed,  the  manufacturers 
would  be  ruined,  for  we  import  flax  from  Holland,  Bel- 
gium, and  Russia. 

"  The  Belfast  Chamber  of  Commerce,  on  April  22, 
1886,  unanimously  adopted  a  resolution  deploring  the  in- 
troduction of  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  at  a  meeting  expressly 
called  '  to  consider  the  proposals  now  placed  before  Par- 
liament by  Mr.  Gladstone.'  The  sudden  fall  in  the  price 
of  all  stocks  while  that  bill  was  pending  shows  how  serious 
is  our  dread  of  Home  Rule. 

"  Private  bill  legislation  in  Ireland  is  necessary,  and 
the  establishment  of  local  county  boards.  Indeed,  most 
moderate  men  would  be  willing  to  accept  a  Home  Rule 
measure,  provided  that  the  executive  were  responsible 
only  to  the  Imperial  Parliament,  and  the  police  and  the 
judges  were  appointed  from  London  and  not  from  Dub- 
lin. The  police  in  Belfast  used  to  be  appointed  by  the 
town  commissioners,  but  during  the  riots  the  force  was 
found  to  be  so  partisan  that  a  change  was  necessary,  and 
Belfast  is  now  policed  by  a  detachment  of  the  Royal 
Irish  Constabulary,  under  the  command  of  a  town  in- 
spector. So  if  the  judges  or  the  police  were  appointed 
by  the  Parnellites,  they  would  lose  their  impartiality. 

"  The  views  of  the  mercantile  community  are  ex- 
pressed by  the  Northern  Whig,  which  as  early  as  1881 
suggested  the  separation  of  Ulster.  'We  want  no  sepa- 
ration ;  but  should  such  a  question  ever  be  discussed, 
Ulster  as  a  province,  with  Belfast  as  its  capital,  would 
have  as  much  right  to  claim  separation  from  the  other 
provinces  of  Ireland  as  the  latter  have  to  ask  for  separa- 
tion from  the  other  portions  of  the  United  Kingdom  ;  for 
it  would  only  be  by  such  separation,  and  the  mainte- 
nance, so  far  as  she  is  concerned,  of  the    Union  with 


IN  ULSTER.  253 

Great  Britain,  that  the  present  manufacturing  and  com- 
mercial position  of  Ulster  could  be  maintained. '  ' 

"  The  League  has  recently  tried  to  prove  that  Ulster 
is  poorer  than  either  Leinster  or  Munster,  but  the  fact  is 
not  so.  The  railway  companies,  the  banks,  and  the 
Inland  Revenue  Department  all  pay  their  income  taxes 
and  duties  to  the  government  in  Dublin.  All  the  passen- 
ger duty  of  the  Great  Northern  Railroad  Company  was 
paid  in  Dublin,  even  before  the  road  was  built  so  far. 
For  all  that,  Dublin  gets  the  credit.  So  when  a  merchant 
in  Belfast  exports  a  hundred  cases  of  linen  to  New  York 
via  Liverpool,  those  goods  are  credited  to  Liverpool.  In 
this  way  the  error  has  become  possible. 

"  There  is  supposed  to  be  about  ^100,000,000  invested 
in  the  flax  and  linen  trade  in  Ulster.  Some  of  the  com- 
panies are  shaky,  but  such  is  not  the  case  with  the  gen- 
erality of  them." 

At  the  Merchants'  Exchange  there  are  some  six  hun- 
dred members,  of  whom  probably  not  over  twenty-five 
are  Catholics.  The  brief  remarks  elicited  from  one  mer- 
chant after  another  were  much  the  same  :  "  In  1884  the 
Bank  of  Ireland  stock  was  342,  in  1886,  249,  and  now  it 
has  only  recovered  to  288.  What  does  that  prove?" 
"  We  grow  one  million  pounds  worth  of  flax  ;  a  duty  of 
ten  per  cent,  would  ruin  all  the  mills  in  Ireland  and  turn 
the  trade  over  to  the  Germans  and  French."  "  If  you 
will  tell  me  what  legislation  would  be  done  by  a  Home- 
Rule  Parliament,  I  will  tell  you  how  it  would  affect  busi- 
ness.    We  do  not  believe  it  would  legislate  wisely." 

One  gentleman,  often  referred  to  as  the  leading  Union- 
ist in  Belfast,  spoke  at  some  length. 

"  A  Home  Ruler  would  make  out  some  case  for  Home 

'  January  i,   ifeSl. 


254  I^  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

Rule  if  he  could  mention  things  we  want  that  Parliament 
cannot  or  will  not  give  us.  We  have  no  special  griev- 
ances here. 

"  Agricultural  depression  is  everywhere  ;  the  deprecia- 
tion of  land  is  as  great  in  England  as  in  Ireland.  The 
question  of  the  rent  is  rather  a  small  matter.  Twenty-five 
years  ago  an  acre  of  land  in  Ireland  would  probably 
have  produced  from  ;^8  to  ^  lo  worth  of  gross  produce. 
The  value  of  that  produce  has  depreciated  about  twenty- 
five  per  cent.,  so  that  a  farm  of  a  hundred  acres  would 
now  make  ^600  instead  of  ^800.  The  average  rent  was 
25J.  per  acre,  and  the  average  reduction  6^.  or  ^30  on 
the  hundred  acres.  The  cost  of  labor  is,  however,  a  third 
or  half  as  much  greater  than  it  used  to  be.  Omit  the  rent 
altogether  and  you  would  not  put  the  farmer  back  where 
he  was  twenty-five  years  ago.  There  are  200,000  tenants 
who  pay  rent  of  less  than  ^4  a  year,  that  means  that  there 
are  a  million  people  who  cannot  make  their  living  out 
of  the  land.  They  used  to  go  to  England  to  harvest,  but 
the  introduction  of  machinery  has  largely  decreased  the 
demand  for  them.  The  stir  of  capital  is  necessary,  and 
agitation  and  the  impoverishment  of  the  landlords  have 
done  them  great  injury. 

**  Till  within  the  last  fifteen  years  the  peasants  were  in 
a  condition  of  serfdom,  afraid  of  their  landlords,  whom 
they  always  approached  as  a  debtor  would  his  creditor, 
making  a  poor  mouth.  Their  votes  were  their  landlords, 
until  the  Ballot  Act.  Since  then  they  have  obtained 
secrecy  of  voting  and  an  independent  interest  in  their 
holdings  ;  but  as  yet  not  half  a  generation  has  been  born 
under  the  new  conditions,  and  the  people  are  now  led 
blindly  either  by  the  priests  or  the  agitators.  Is  it  not  a 
risky  experiment  to  entrust  the  government  to  the  hands 


IN  ULSTER.  255 

of  these  people,  who  have  never  cast  a  responsible  vote  in 
their  lives  or  not  till  very  recently  ?  In  England  you 
have  urban  and  rural  constituencies  nearly  equally  di- 
vided. You  have  artisans  and  mechanics  and  a  great 
body  of  professional  men.  In  Ireland  the  urban  constit- 
tuencies  are  in  the  proportion  of  one  to  sixteen,  and 
there  is  no  middle  class  except  the  small  country  shop- 
keeper and  the  merchants  to  be  found  in  a  city  like  Bel- 
fast. The  whole  idea  of  the  bulk  of  the  voters  since 
1870  has  been  to  hit  the  landlords  and  get  something 
from  them.  Can  they  be  trusted  now  to  decide  wisely 
difficult  economical  questions  ?  Yet  the  Irish  are  very 
able  and  have  a  genius  for  politics,  and  but  for  the  legis- 
lation since  1870  I  should  be  a  strong  Nationalist  now. 

"  The  first  legislation  of  an  Irish  Parliament  would  be 
apt  to  be  dangerous.  Protection  is  the  panacea  the  Na- 
tionalists advance,  and  that  would  be  fatal  to  us.  The 
Irish  are  not  accustomed  to  factory  life,  and  are  fond  of 
feasts  and  holidays  ;  they  would  try  to  foster  industries 
under  unprofitable  conditions,  and  would  throw  the  bur- 
den of  the  experiment  on  communities  like  this. 

"  There  is  almost  a  certainty  that  an  Irish  Parliament 
would  change  the  national-school  system  and  make  it 
part  of  the  machinery  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  in- 
fluence of  men  like  Davitt  and  Parnell  is  the  only  coun- 
terpoise to  the  influence  of  the  clergy.  The  leading  poli- 
ticians may  be  free  from  bigotry,  but  not  the  ignorant 
masses  who  elect  them.  That  is  true  of  the  south  and 
the  west,  while  in  the  north  the  only  politics  and  pretty 
much  the  only  religion  of  the  masses  is  hatred  of  the 
Pope. 

"  The  National  feeling  is  chiefly  fed  by  Catholicism. 
The  Catholics  don't  intermarry  with  the  Protestants,  they 


256  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

don't  live  together,  nor  even  dance  together.  No  race 
feeling  could  be  half  so  strong.  Any  legislation  in  the 
interest  of  the  Catholics  would  cause  riots  in  Belfast. 
Who  would  put  the  riots  down  ?  The  police  ?  They  eat 
the  police  alive  in  Belfast.  The  military  ?  I  know  many 
officers  who  would  throw  up  their  commissions  sooner 
than  interfere  ;  and  how  long  would  the  English  people 
tolerate  the  shooting  down  of  loyal  Protestants  by  the 
British  army  at  the  command  of  the  National  League  ? 
It  would  n't  be  a  question  of  shooting  a  few  rioters,  but 
of  suppressing  the  whole  country-side,  with  the  clergy 
at  the  head  of  their  congregations. 

"There  is  no  good  in  giving  Home  Rule  unless  the 
measure  is  thoroughgoing ;  a  system  of  local  boards 
would  be  useless,  because  the  membership  would  not 
give  sufficient  dignity  and  responsibility  to  attract  com- 
petent men. 

"Representation  in  the  imperial  Parliament  would  be 
absurd,  because  Irishmen  would  then  be  interfering  in 
English  and  Scotch  affairs,  which  could  not  possibly  be 
separated  from  imperial  affairs  as  Parliament  is  now  con- 
stituted. Home  Rule  for  Ireland  must  then  be  correlated 
with  Home  Rule  for  England  and  Scotland.  This  would 
mean  a  complete  change  of  the  constitution,  and  a  senate 
of  some  sort  would  be  necessary  in  which  members  from 
each  country  could  meet  on  the  same  footing.  If  the 
Irish  Parliament,  for  instance,  passed  a  law  of  doubtful 
constitutionality,  could  it  be  abrogated  by  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain,  in  which  we  are  not  represented  ? 

"  When  you  begin  to  cut  up  the  country  and  establish 
separate  local  parliaments,  where  are  you  to  stop  ?  With 
Wales  and  Scotland,  England  and  Ireland  .''  Will  you 
separate  the  north    of    England   from  the  south?     Are 


IN  ULSTER.  257 

you  going  to  upset  the  whole  cart,  the  government  of 
some  forty  million  people,  for  the  sake  of  three  million 
Home  Rulers  in  Ireland  ? 

"  There  are  certain  reforms  we  do  need.  Our  execu- 
tive and  administrative  departments  are  all  inspired  from 
Dublin  Castle,  and  that  means  a  very  narrow  clique,  tra- 
ditionally opposed  to  the  real  sentiments  of  the  great 
body  of  the  people.  Every  poor-law  inspector,  every 
stipendiary  magistrate,  is  appointed  by  the  Castle,  and 
that  is  the  secret  of  the  hatred  of  the  government  in  Ire- 
land. It  is  not  a  question  of  parliamentary  government. 
That  could  n't  be  successful  so  long  as  the  two  opposing 
parties  are  fighting  so  bitterly,  for  agitation  would  con- 
tinue, and  extremists  on  each  side  would  keep  the  ear  of 
the  people. 

"  We  Presbyterians  object  to  this  centralization  as  much 
as  the  Catholics  do  ;  we  are  out  in  the  cold  as  much  as 
they  are,  and  as  things  settle  down  will  work  with  them 
for  changes. 

"  I  would  recommend  that  the  executive  consult  with 
the  Nationalist  leaders  as  to  the  appointment  of  magis- 
trates. The  private-bill  legislation  for  Ireland  might 
also  be  entrusted  to  the  Irish  members  sitting  at  Dublin, 
as  a  committee  of  the  House,  If  this  were  done,  the 
members  would  soon  be  weeded  out.  Most  of  them  now 
are  regular  adventurers,  and  under  Home  Rule  they 
would  be  our  masters.  What  we  need  is  to  be  able  to 
test  and  increase  the  ability  and  honesty  of  these  men 
without  throwing  our  whole  constitution  out  of  joint.  I 
should  like  to  see  Healy  made  Attorney-General  ;  it 
would  make  a  much  better  man  of  him. 

"I  think  the  notion  of  'a  separate  Ulster'  is  totally 
wrong,  but  I  am  sure  the  north  of  Ireland  would  not  at 


258  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

present  obtain  justice  from  a  legislature  at  Dublin.  In 
sympathy,  connections,  and  interests  the  bulk  of  the 
Protestant  north  are  more  closely  allied  with  England 
and  Scotland  than  with  the  rest  of  Ireland.  As  to  the 
lower  agricultural  population,  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hun- 
dred would  want  a  separate  Ulster  if  Home  Rule  is  to  be 
given  at  all,  and  they  had  to  make  their  election  ;  but 
they  are  not  willing  to  adopt  that  policy  yet  ;  they  don't 
want  to  remove  the  block  they  now  are  to  Home  Rule. 
Many  people  believe  that  as  a  separate  province  the 
future  of  Ulster  would  be  made,  for  the  best  people  in 
the  south  say  they  would  come  here.  I  think  it  a  miser- 
able alternative,  for  it  would  create  a  constant  source  of 
trouble,  a  regular  sore.  There  would  be  competition  be- 
tween the  legislatures  inside  and  out  of  the  pale  for  the 
interests  of  particular  classes.  I  am  opposed  to  it  also 
in  sentiment,  for  I  prefer  to  be  an  Irishman  than  an 
Ulsterman.  We  are  a  desperately  bigoted  people,  politi- 
cally and  religiously,  Presbyterians,  Methodists,  Church- 
men, and  Catholics. 

"At  present  I  think  that  Irish  affairs  can  be  managed 
as  well  at  Westminster,  or  through  Westminster,  as  by  a 
Parliament  at  Dublin.  In  time  the  people  may  grow  out 
of  their  present  state  of  demoralization  ;  the  National 
movement  has  changed  enormously  from  the  time  of  the 
Fenians,  and  the  alliance  between  the  Liberals  and  the 
Nationalists  will  modify  it  still  more,  for  the  Liberals 
will  not  stand  outrages,  and  don't  sympathize  with  ex- 
treme views.  In  time  the  legislative  benefits  of  the  last 
few  years  will  begin  to  show  some  results,  and  the  farm- 
ers, as  they  become  proprietors,  will  become  conserva 
tive.  After  a  while  a  better  set  of  politicians  will,  I  hope, 
come  to  the  front.     In  five  or  six  years  then  there  may 


IN   ULSTER.  259 

well  be  less  danger  in  Home  Rule,  but  no  special 
benefit." 

"A  friend  of  mine,"  said  a  flax  manufacturer,  as  he 
drew  his  chair  up  to  the  table  in  the  club,  "  tried  to  start 
a  mill  near  Cork.  The  difficulty  he  found  sprang  from 
religious  interference.  The  parish  priest  made  him  take 
on  an  incompetent  foreman  he  had  dismissed,  and  soon 
there  was  not  a  foreman  or  overseer  under  his  control. 
The  result  was  a  bad  failure.  Even  when  the  men  don't 
care  about  sectarian  questions,  the  women  do,  and  the 
priests  work  on  their  husbands  and  sons  through  them. 

"We  have  had  no  advantage  over  the  rest  of  Ireland, 
but  rather  every  disadvantage.  The  climate  is  better  in 
the  south  ;  and  we,  too,  have  neither  coal  nor  iron. 

"  Peasant  proprietorship  will  do  one  good  thing.  It 
will  clear  out  a  whole  lot  of  incompetent  men.  More- 
over, there  will  then  be  nothing  to  agitate  about.  It  will 
not,  however,  bring  the  millennium.  The  few  shillings  a 
year  saved  will  not  enable  the  smaller  men  to  live  here, 
and  they  will  have  to  emigrate." 

Another  manufacturer,  not  in  the  linen  trade,  but  still 
one  of  the  most  successful  citizens  of  Belfast,  represented 
conservative  Presbyterian  opinions  : 

"  The  Protestant  Home  Rulers  are  people  who  would 
not  be  considered  by  anybody,  and  for  the  most  part  are 
not  Protestants  at  all  but  deists  and  infidels. 

"There  are  some  220,000  people  in  Belfast,  of  whom 
70,000  are  Catholics,  and  they  are  the  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water,  and  would  never  have  been  intro- 
duced into  the  city  except  from  the  demand  for  mill 
hands.  Nine  tenths  of  the  public-houses  are  kept  by 
Catholics,  while  the  vast  majority  of  the  large  wholesale 
merchants  are  Protestants. 


260  IN   CASTLE   AND   CABIN. 

"  The  Nationalist  success  is  the  first  result  of  the  ex- 
tension of  the  suffrage  to  small  tenants. 

"Agriculture  to  be  profitable  needs  to  be  conducted 
on  a  large  scale,  and  this  is  impossible  with  such  small 
holdings.  Till  we  get  the  population  down  to  three 
millions  we  shall  never  come  to  any  good.  How  can  five 
or  six  people  live  on  a  five-acre  farm  ?  It  is  necessary 
to  find  something  else  for  them  to  do.  Why  does  n't 
Parnell  take  up  some  of  these  questions,  for  most  of  the 
existing  misery  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  want 
of  Home  Rule  ?  Why,  too,  have  the  National  Leaguers 
never  paid  a  poor  man's  rent  out  of  their  American 
money  ?  The  other  day  a  friend  of  mine  was  obliged  to 
evict  a  tenant  because  he  had  been  in  possession  without 
paying  rent  for  eleven  years,  and  eviction  was  the  only 
means  by  which  my  friend  could  retain  his  title. 

"The  poverty  of  the  landlords  has  already  ruined 
many  trades.  From  ten  to  twenty  years  ago  half  our 
trade  in  Ireland  was  in  stable  fittings  and  such  goods 
that  the  landlords  can  no  longer  afford  to  buy.  I  calcu- 
late, too,  that  some  ^500,000  has  been  lost  to  this  coun- 
try by  the  boycotting  of  hunting. 

"The  people  have  lost  more  in  morality  since  1880, 
than  they  have  gained  by  the  reductions  of  the  rent.  It 
is,  too,  the  payments  to  one  another  for  tenant  right,  and 
not  the  payments  to  the  landlords  of  rent,  that  have 
ruined  so  many  farmers.  I  know  many  a  man  who  has 
gone  into  debt  for  the  purchase  money  of  a  tenant  right. 

"  The  Catholics  complain  of  not  being  given  political 
offices,  but  out  of  ten  thousand  people  you  will  scarcely 
find  six  Catholics  fit  to  administer  out-door  relief  or  to 
sit  on  the  local  boards. 

"  We  are  satisfied  in  Belfast  fairly  well  with  things  as 


IN    ULSTER,  261 

they  are.  We  want  quietness  ;  m  e  don't  want  any  radical 
change.  Many  things  have  contributed  to  our  success  : 
that  we  can  get  coal  as  cheaply  as  on  the  Clyde,  that  our 
taxes  are  low,  the  houses  cheaper  and  more  commodious, 
and  that  men  can  live  better  here  for  the  same  money 
than  elsewhere.  Here  is  my  list  of  local  taxes,  so  much 
in  the  pound  of  my  real-estate  valuation  :  '  Poor-rate,  \s. 
Sd.  ;  borough  rate,  3^.  y  general  purpose  rate,  2s.  6d.  ;  park 
rate  (a  special  temporary  charge),  3^.'  This  is  far  less 
than  taxes  in  Dublin. 

"  Home  Rule,  we  believe,  would  absolutely  ruin  our 
trade.  The  linen  trade  of  course  could  not  be  moved, 
but  the  ship-building  would  go.  Harland  himself  has 
said  he  would  not  stay,  and  he  employs  over  six  thousand 
men.  We  do  most  of  our  business  in  England  and  Scot- 
land and  only  one  tenth  is  in  Ireland.  We,  and  others 
like  us,  would  go  out  of  business.  The  whiskey  trade 
will  go.  John  Brown,  worth  about  ;^ 200,000,  said  that 
if  Home  Rule  came  he  would  close  up  his  works  and  go 
to  England.  The  banking  system  is  altogether  English, 
and  the  banks  will  be  ruined.  One  of  the  first  things  a 
Home-Rule  Parliament  will  do  will  be  to  establish  a 
national  bank,  whose  notes  will  be  issued  or  guaranteed 
by  the  Irish  government,  and  that  will  destroy  the  issue 
business  cf  the  other  banks.  The  process  of  transferring 
the  business  houses  from  Belfast  will  be  slow  but  inev- 
itable. 

"Although  I  don't  want  Home  Rule,  I  think  the  pass- 
ing of  the  Act  of  Union  was  bad  for  Ireland,  because  it 
created  a  great  inducement  to  absenteeism,  and  the  best 
class  of  people  got  into  the  habit  of  going  to  London, 

"  Again,  we  don't  want  to  have  to  go  to  England  in 
order  to  get  a  new  bridge  built  here.     The  grand  jury 


262  IN   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

system  should  be  elective,  so  that  we  could  control  our 
own  taxes  and  expenses.  Primary  education  should  be 
compulsory. 

"  Call  at  the  Clerk's  office  and  note  the  number  of 
illiterate  voters  in  Belfast  at  the  last  election.  There 
are  nearly  four  times  as  many  illiterates  in  the  district 
that  returned  Mr.  Sexton,  the  Nationalist,  as  in  any 
other."  ' 

An  enthusiastic  young  man,  a  ship-broker,  carried  me 
off  one  afternoon  to  the  office  of  the  only  linen  firm  of 
which  the  members  were  Catholics.  A  shrewd-looking, 
gray-headed  gentleman  turned  round  in  his  chair  to 
greet  us. 

"  I  am  not  a  politician,  as  my  brother  is,"  he  ex- 
plained. "  I  had  a  strong  fit  of  political  enthusiasm  in 
1848,  and  that  exhausted  all  I  had  in  me.  Since  then 
I  've  been  merely  a  spectator. 

"  The  Protestants  would  be  greatly  indignant  if  we 
had  Home  Rule,  but  I  don't  think  they  would  do  more 
than  grumble,  and  they  will  probably  take  every  advan- 
tage that  Home  Rule  offers.  They  are  opposed  to  it  not 
as  business  men  but  as  politicians,  they  don't  want  to  lose 
their  political  ascendancy.  We  have  been  for  a  long 
time  carrying  them  on  our  backs,  or  rather  they  have 
been  riding  on  our  backs,  and  don't  want  to  dismount. 
The  Ulster  Protestants  raise  all  this  clamor,  because 
they  want  something  given  to  stop  their  mouths." 


'  The  figures  are  : 

Division. 

No.  Illiterate. 

Vote  Cast. 

Elected. 

East  Division 

.      228 

6292 

Cobain 

West  Division     . 

•     944 

7559 

Sexton 

North  Division  . 

.     125 

5254 

Ewart 

South  Division     . 

•     153 

5199 

Johnson 

IN   ULSTER.  263 

"  There  is  n't  one  Catholic  in  the  Harbor  Board  or  in 
their  employment,  except  two  brokers,"  interrupted  the 
young  man. 

"  Protection,"  continued  the  old  gentleman,"  is  prob- 
ably impossible  ;  because  if  agricultural  products  are 
taxed,  the  working-men  will  complain,  and  if  manufac- 
tured articles  are  taxed,  the  farmers  will  complain.  Two 
or  three  years  ago  there  was  a  good  deal  of  talk  about 
Fair  Trade,  but  it  seems  to  have  died  out.  If  I  thought 
protection  would  come  with  Home  Rule,  I  would  vote 
against  Home  Rule. 

"  I  don't  suppose  we  shall  get  any  great  benefit  from 
Home  Rule  in  Belfast  in  my  day.  Indeed,  the  saving 
of  expense  in  sending  our  private  bills  to  London  to  be 
passed,  is  the  only  immediate  benefit  I  think  of." 

"  No,  no,"  cried  out  our  companion.  "  These  men 
are  the  descendants  of  colonists,  and  still  consider  them- 
selves as  colonists,  living  off  the  country  but  caring  little 
for  it.     Won't  it  be  a  benefit  to  make  them  care  for  it  ? 

"  Again,  the  encouragement  of  our  resources  would  be 
a  great  boon.  There  are  mountains  in  Antrim  and 
Down  full  of  iron  ore,  and  ^2,000  would  be  enough  to 
make  experiments  and  start  manufactories.  Then  our 
people  might  make  the  iron  plates  for  the  Belfast  ship- 
yards. So  with  coal,  there  is  plenty  of  it  about  Dungan- 
non  in  Tyrone,  and  Ballycastle  in  Antrim.  The  English 
government  does  make  various  loans  to  Ireland,  but 
many  of  them  are  jobs,  and  very  little  of  the  money 
reaches  its  destination. 

"  Again,  we  want  Catholic  education.  The  books 
issued  by  the  Board  of  Intermediate  Education,  though 
half  the  Board  are  Catholic,  contain  frequently  matter 
insulting  to  Catholics.     I  would  n't  have  a  child  of  mine 


264  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

contaminated  by  reading  them.  The  national-school 
books  are  freer  from  this  fault,  but  I  would  n't  have  my 
children  brought  up  without  perpetual  religious  instruc- 
tion. The  government  is  dead  to  every  thing  Irish. 
The  gist  of  the  matter  is  that  we  live  here  and  wish  to 
prosper,  and  we  think  we  can  manage  our  own  business 
best." 

"  The  question  of  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  it," 
said  the  merchant.  '"'  If  the  priests  had  their  way  there 
would  n't  be  Home  Rule  here  for  two  hundred  years." 

''  That  's  the  truest  thing  you  've  said  this  evening," 
replied  the  young  fellow  ;  "  and  I  will  say  this,  that  if 
you  could  secure  to  Ulster  influence  in  the  Dublin  Par- 
liament, Ulster  would  go  for  Home  Rule  to-morrow." 

"  They  would  go  like  sheep,  even  the  educated  classes," 
continued  the  merchant. 

"Would  you  trust  the  present  M.P.'s  ?"  I  asked. 

"  I  would  n't  trust  them  farther  than  I  could  see  them," 
cried  the  older  man,  "  but  no  more  I  would  any  politi- 
cian." 

"  If  we  sent  the  English  over  eighty-five  apostles," 
shouted  the  younger  man,  "  they  would  find  names  of 
abuse  to  fling  at  them,  and  some  would  stick.  These 
men  are  unimpeachable  and  irreproachable,  and  we 
should  all  feel  extreme  gratitude  to  them." 

"  I  don't  feel  a  particle,"  said  the  other,  "  but  it  makes 
little  difference  what  they  are  or  what  their  motives  are, 
if  they  get  us  benefits.  I  would  take  a  good  thing  even 
from  the  Old  Scratch." 

"  An  Ulster  Parliament  seems  to  me  such  an  idiotic 
idea  that  no  one  out  of  a  lunatic  asylum  could  be- 
lieve in  it.  What  is  Ulster  that  she  should  have  a  sep- 
arate Parliament  ?    Statistics   prepared   by   the   League 


IN   ULSTER.  265 

show  that  Ulster  is  less  wealthy  than  any  province  ex- 
cept Connaught.  Belfast  is  prosperous,  but  largely  by 
accident.  It  is  on  the  Marquis  of  Donegal's  property  ; 
and  his  debts  were  so  great  that  he  was  glad  to  give 
blank  leases  for  almost  any  thing.  Lisbourne  was  not  so 
fortunate,  and  the  Richardsons,  the  linen  merchants, 
tried  in  vain  to  get  satisfactory  leases  there  and  had  to 
go  to  Newry  where  they  have  built  a  village." 

I  walked  home  to  take  tea  with  "  the  firm,"  and  on  the 
way  the  conversation  was  continued.  The  land  question 
came  up. 

"There  is  no  man,"  said  the  merchant,  "with  an 
article  to  sell,  who  will  not  try  to  get  the  best  price  for  it. 
The  landlords  have  not  been  so  much  to  blame  after 
all.  So  eager  for  land  are  the  people,  that  they  even 
borrow  money  from  the  banks  at  twelve  per  cent,  to  buy 
a  neighbor's  tenant  right.  It  will  not  be  more  than  two 
generations  after  a  peasant  proprietary  is  established 
before  a  new  class  of  landlords  arise. 

"  I  have  always  believed  that  a  man  should  stick  to  his 
bargains  about  land  as  about  any  thing  else  ;  that  he 
should  be  allowed  to  make  his  own  bargains  ;  that  land 
is  a  commodity  like  other  things,  and  that  if  a  man 
could  n't  pay  for  it  he  should  leave  it.  But  the  last  Land 
Act  has  changed  my  mind.  The  government  has  decided 
that  land  is  different  from  any  other  commodity  ;  the 
rents  are  now  fixed  by  the  courts  and  not  by  the  parties  ; 
and  free  sale  of  the  tenant  right  is  allowed,  which  op- 
erates to  impose  on  the  land  an  additional  rent.  The 
present  system  won't  work  ;  and  the  old  system  is  de- 
clared to  be  false.  The  only  way  I  see  out  of  the  mud- 
dle is  the  nationalization  of  the  land." 

I  mentioned  the  difficulty  in  the  way  of  Home  Rule, 


266  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

that  if  the  Irish  M.P's.  remain  in  Parliament  they  will  be 
acting  on  questions  of  purely  English  concern,  while  if 
they  are  excluded  from  Parliament,  the  Irish  people  will 
be  taxed  by  a  body  in  which  they  are  not  represented, 
and  will  be  subordinated  to  a  policy  purely  alien. 

"  What  is  workable  for  Canada,"  was  the  reply,  "  might 
do  here." 

"I  think  now,"  he  went  on,  "of  some  further  advan- 
tages of  Home  Rule.  You  can  bring  goods  from  Leeds 
to  Athlone  for  less  than  you  can  take  them  there  from 
Belfast.  An  Irish  Parliament  might  superintend  the 
management  of  the  Irish  railroads." 

After  tea  the  other  member  of  the  firm,  the  politician, 
the  leader  of  the  Nationalists  in  Belfast,  took  up  the  tale. 

"  Home  Rule,"  he  declared,  "  would  be  an  enormous 
benefit.  Here  are  70,000  Catholics  in  Belfast  without 
any  influence  in  the  city  government.  It  is  true  that  the 
Catholics  control  no  considerable  industries,  except  that 
of  mineral  water,  but  man  for  man  in  Ulster  I  think  their 
accumulated  wealth  would  equal  that  of  the  Protestants. 
Statistics  are  hard  to  get,  but  during  the  twenty-five  years 
of  the  administration  of  the  late  Catholic  Archbishop  of 
Down  and  Connor,  his  parishioners  contributed  over 
half  a  million  pounds  towards  church  buildings,  schools, 
convents,  and  colleges.  There  is  one  Catholic  spinning- 
mill  in  Ulster,  that  of  William  Ross,  who  got  into  the 
trade  by  accident.  Not  a  Catholic  could  become  a  man- 
ager of  a  spinning-mill  here.  Hughes,  the  great  baker  in 
Belfast,  a  Catholic,  tried  in  vain  to  get  his  three  sons 
into  the  mills.  The  Catholics  have  been  pushing  lately 
in  the  tobacco  trade  and  the  jewelry  trade.  Brown  is 
the  chief  Catholic  jeweller,  and  Leahy,  Kelly,  &  Leahy 
is  a  great  Catholic  tobacco  firm.     Until  a  few  years  ago 


IN   ULSTER.  267 

no  prominent  shopkeeper  was  a  Catholic  outside  of  the 
public-house  business.  Now  most  of  the  hotels  are 
kept  by  Catholics, — the  Royal,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the 
Linen  Hall,  the  Donegal,  and  the  Union  ;  this  began, 
perhaps,  as  an  extension  of  the  publican  trade. 

"  It  would  add  strength  to  the  commerce  of  Belfast  if 
Catholics  had  a  fair  share  in  it. 

"There  was  no  Catholic  organization  here  till  1885. 
If  we  were  organized  properly  we  could  upset  the  corpo- 
ration of  Belfast,  but  we  don't  wish  to  do  so,  for  we  are 
peacefully  disposed  and  want  only  a  fair  share  in  the 
distribution  of  power. 

"  That  the  Nationalists  when  they  get  into  power  will 
act  patriotically,  without  religious  prejudice,  is  shown  by 
the  conduct  of  Sexton  in  Parliament.  Sexton  has 
brought  in  a  bill  to  equalize  the  municipal  with  the  par- 
liamentary franchise,  though  this  change  will  enfranchise 
more  of  the  Orange  than  of  the  Catholic  democracy. 
The  town  council  has  been  promoting  a  main  drainage 
bill  authorizing  them  to  borrow  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
million  pounds.  Sexton  has  had  the  bill  postponed  on 
the  ground  that  the  council  now  is  a  mere  clique  and  not 
representative,  though  the  new  council  is  just  as  certain 
to  be  wholly  Protestant.  Harland  and  Wolff's  men  struck 
some  time  ago  for  weekly  wages,  which  had  been  usual 
till  recently.  Sexton,  accordingly,  had  tacked  on  to 
Bradlaugh's  '  Truck  Bill '  a  clause  to  give  weekly  pay- 
ments in  Ireland,  except  in  piece-work.  Yet  these  Island 
men,  as  they  are  called,  are  the  most  bigoted  Orangemen 
and  stir  up  all  the  riots  against  the  Catholics.  Sexton 
has  also  brought  in  a  local  bankruptcy  bill,  to  establish 
courts  in  Belfast,  Limerick,  and  Cork. 

"Sexton,  the  first  Catholic  M.P.  for  Belfast,  and  the 


268  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

only  active  M.P.  we  have  had,  is  a  living  proof  that  we 
don't  want  to  set  up  a  counter  ascendancy  to  the 
Protestants. 

"  There  will  be  no  successful  rebellion  in  Ulster,  for 
in  1 88 1  forty-nine  per  cent,  of  the  population  were  Catho- 
lics, and  now  the  Catholics  must  be  equal  or  more  than 
equal  to  the  Protestants.  What  rioting  there  might  be 
would  be  easily  checked  by  the  police.  There  would 
have  been  none  in  1886  if  the  police  had  been  energetic. 
The  riots  began  on  the  4th  of  June,  and  continued  inter- 
mittently till  the  end  of  September.  Only  about  thirty 
persons  were  reported  killed  in  that  four  months'  fight- 
ing. As  to  what  the  police  could  have  done,  see  in  the 
parliamentary  report '  how  Sergeant  Carey  with  only 
nine  truncheon  men  drove  a  mob  of  a  thousand  men 
down  Stanhope  Street,  and  up  and  down  Porter's  Hill. 
*  If  every  one  had  done  so,'  said  Sir  John  Charles  Day, 
the  President  of  the  Commission,  "  these  riots  would  have 
ended  long  ago.'  Was  Carey  promoted  ?  Not  he ;  he 
was  sent  out  of  Belfast  as  too  good  a  man  for  this  place. 

"  Our  day  is  near  at  hand,  for  as  Gladstone  showed 
lately  a  change  of  only  six  per  cent,  will  put  the  Conserva- 
tives out  and  the  Liberals  in." 

"Will  not  taxes  be  higher  under  Home  Rule,"  I  asked, 
"  and  the  credit  of  the  country  less  ?  " 

"  As  to  money,"  he  replied,  "  we  have  plenty  of 
money,  thirty-two  millions  of  Irish  money  are  invested  in 
England.  Our  payments  to  England  will  be  less  under 
any  rational  scheme,  for,  as  Sir  Charles  G.  Duffy  pointed 
out,  we  are  paying  nearly  seven  million  pounds  a  year 
towards    the  interest  on  the  national   debt,  instead   of 

'  Belfast  Riots  Commission,  1886,  Minutes  of  Evidence,  pp. 
538,  539- 


IN    ULSTER.  269 

;i^3, 500,000.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  I  agree  thoroughly 
with  his  idea  of  a  constitution  for  Ireland.'  I  think  too 
that  we  should  be  more  than  just  to  the  Protestant  mi- 
nority, and  allow  them  more  than  their  full  representa- 
tion. 

"  The  existence  of  Orangeism  and  Masonry  here  has 
helped  to  destroy  the  linen  trade.  The  merchants  buy 
and  sell  not  on  commercial  principles,  but  for  the  bene- 
fit of  their  brotherhood.  The  system  of  limited  lia- 
bility companies  has  increased  this  cliquishness. 

'^  So  much  money  was  made  in  linen  during  the  Amer- 
ican civil  war,  that  mills  were  built  in  excessive  num- 
bers. Every  small  shopkeeper  put  his  mite  into  the 
trade.  The  result  of  this  over-production  is  that  a  large 
number  of  the  spinning-mills  are  now  insolvent.  The 
Northern  Spinning  Company  is  in  process  of  liquidation. 
The  Ulster  Spinning  Company,  with  one  twelfth  of  all 
the  spindles  in  Ulster,  some  60,000,  had  to  reorganize  a 
short  time  ago. 

"  The  large  spinning  concerns  are  largely  carried  on 
with  deposits  lent  them  for  specified  times  by  the  farm- 
ers and  the  Catholics  who  have  no  opportunity  of  using 
their  money  in  starting  business  of  their  own.  The  York 
Street  Flax  Spinning  Company,  Limited,  had,  for  in- 
stance, half  a  million  on  deposit,  over  and  above  its  cap- 
ital, on  which  it  pays  five  per  cent.  A  business  managed 

'  Sir  Charles  G.  Duffy  proposed  a  Parliament,  with  the  same  pow- 
ers as  the  Canadian  and  Australian  legislatures,  of  two  houses.  The 
Lower  House  to  consist  of  105  members,  three  members  being 
elected  by  each  of  thirty-five  constituencies,  no  elector  voting  for 
more  than  two  candidates.  The  Senate  to  consist  of  54  members, 
appointed  in  the  Constitution,  but  to  be  elective  after  ten  years.  A 
court  of  three  judges  is  to  be  appointed  to  act  as  interpreters  of  the 
Act  of  Constitution  ;  and  the  judiciary  at  large  to  bo  appointed. 


270  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

in  such  a  way,  even  though  the  deposit  receipts  circulate 
as  bank  notes,  must  always  be  liable  to  be  shaken. 

Mr.  James  Canning,  Mr.  Oldham  of  Dublin,  and  Mi- 
chael Davitt,  with  the  Protestant  Home  Rule  Asssocia- 
tion,  are  trying  to  extend  the  cultivation  of  flax  outside 
of  Ulster.  Our  object  is  to  reform  abuses  in  the  trade, 
not  to  attack  the  trade  itself. 

"  Revolutionary  methods  are  now  discredited.  Davitt 
tried  to  draw  a  red  herring  across  the  Nationalist  move- 
ment by  introducing  Henry  George's  theory  of  nation- 
alization of  the  land,  but  he  will  not  be  allowed  to  inter- 
fere with  the  business  now  in  hand.  All  the  old  Fenian 
movement  is  dead  now.  Mr.  James  O'Kelly,  an  out  and 
outer,  who  would  be  as  willing  as  any  one  to  head  a  force 
in  arms,  now  admits  that  the  English  democracy  is 
heart  and  soul  with  us,  and  he  and  Tim  Healey  are  hon- 
est converts  to  the  *  New  Departure.'  " 

Another  business  man,  interested  chiefly  in  the  Stock 
Exchange,  has  the  advantage  of  being  a  foreigner  by  birth, 
though  he  has  lived  in  Belfast  for  the  last  twenty-six 
years.  "Unless  England,"  he  said,  "sends  an  army  here 
to  enforce  obedience  to  a  Dublin  Parliament,  I  don't  be- 
lieve that  Ulstermen  will  pay  taxes  or  submit  to  it  in  any 
way.  What  interest  has  England  in  establishing  a  hos- 
tile government  at  its  back  door  ? 

"  The  welcome  paid  here  to  Chamberlain  was  general 
and  not  merely  Orange.  At  the  great  banquet  in  his 
honor,  out  of  the  four  hundred  guests  probably  not  five 
were  Orangemen.  The  middle  and  the  upper  classes  here 
are  not  Orange. 

"The  banks  here  are  very  prosperous,  chiefly  because 
they  have  a  small  paid  up  capital  and  get  large  deposits 
^rom  the  farmers  who  have  nothing  else  to  do  with  their 


IN   ULSTER.  271 

money  and  are  contented  with  about  one  per  cent,  for  it. 
The  Ulster  Bank  pays  eighteen  per  cent.,  the  Belfast 
Banking  Co.,  twenty,  and  the  Northern,  twelve  per  cent." 

The  views  of  a  couple  of  commercial  travellers  may 
well  close  this  brief  sketch  of  the  sentiments  of  the  busi- 
ness men  of  Belfast. 

"  Here,"  said  Mr.  S.,  in  the  commission  trade  in  Done- 
gal Street,  who  has  travelled  through  ''  every  village  in 
Ireland," — "  here  in  Ulster  we  have  nine  counties  as  pros- 
perous as  any  in  the  land.  We  are  an  energetic,  honest 
race,  very  different  from  the  south  of  Ireland  people. 
The  successful  Irishmen  in  America  are  chiefly  of  Irish- 
Scotch  descent.  The  southern  Irish  are  born  politi- 
cians and  form  a  clique  in  every  city,  but  they  are  not 
capable  of  self-government.  The  reason  is  that  they  be- 
long to  a  system,  semi-religious  and  semi-political.  Here 
we  are  as  free  as  anywhere  under  the  sun,  but  the  Catho- 
lic Irish  have  a  different  idea  of  liberty.  See  how  they 
assaulted  the  English  in  Boston  at  their  celebration  of  the 
Queen's  Jubilee.  They  want  no  one  to  be  free  except  as 
they  dictate.  The  farmers,  too,  on  the  hills  and  moun- 
tains are  very  ignorant  and  brutal.  They  have  no  sym- 
pathy with  manufactures.  Now  that  they  have  the  suf- 
frage, Home  Rule  would  give  us  over  into  their  hands. 

"The  people  of  Belfast  simply  want  to  be  let  alone. 
They  think  they  are  doing  as  well  as  any  people  in  the 
world.  We  are  always  on  the  job,  and  make  bargains 
without  telling  lies.  We  want  peace  and  quiet,  and  very 
much  object  to  getting  hurt,  but  when  put  on  our  mettle 
we  don't  give  in  easy.  We  have  never  been  conquered, 
and  never  will  be.  I  am  not  an  Orangeman,  but  I  am 
the  kind  of  stuff  Orangemen  are  made  of. 

"  I  am  not   rigidly  conservative.     I  was  a  member  of 


2/2  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

the  Land  League  till  the  Land  Acts  were  passed,  but 
this  talk  of  nationality  I  don't  believe  in.  I  cannot  look 
on  myself  as  hemmed  into  a  little  place  like  Ireland.  I 
want  to  be  world-wide.  Though  born  in  Ireland  and  of 
Irish  parents,  I  can  go  to  any  colony  to-morrow  and  find 
myself  still  in  my  own  country  as  an  Englishman." 

"  I  have  been  all  over  Ulster,"  said  another  commer- 
cial traveller.  "  The  farmers  want  the  land  cheap  ;  that 's 
the  peg  the  whole  National  question  hangs  on ;  settle 
that  and  all  is  settled.  The  farmers  are  chiefly  Presby- 
terians, and  all  agree  on  this. 

"The  people  are  very  selfish  and  there  has  been  an 
immense  amount  of  land  grabbing.  A  farmer  will  often 
have,  say^ioo  in  the  bank  at  ^i  a  year  interest.  He 
cannot  use  the  money  profitably  in  any  occupation  ex- 
cept farming,  but  there  is  a  farm  next  door  which  he  can 
work  without  much  increase  in  his  expenses.  The  land- 
lord often  in  the  past  would  say  to  his  tenant :  '  Here  's  a 
man  who  wants  the  farm  and  offers  more  rent  than  you 
are  paying  ;  you  must  pay  the  increased  rent  or  go.'  In 
many  parts  of  the  country  the  landlords  are  mean  and 
with  but  little  sense  of  honor,  and  if  it  were  not  for  the 
boycotting  the  rack-renting  would  have  been  extreme." 

SOME    BELFAST    PROFESSIONAL    MEN. 

The  great  majority  of  professional  men  in  Belfast  are 
Protestants  and  Unionists,  but  an  able  statement  of  the 
Nationalist  position  was  made  to  me  by  Mr.  Andrew  Mc- 
Erlean,  a  gray-haired  solicitor. 

"  In  the  time  of  James  I.  the  Irish  were  driven  to  the 
mountains'  sides  and  the  waters'  edges,  and  the  whole 
country  was  planted  with  Protestants,  chiefly  lowland 
Scotch.     Gradually,  as  the  rents  were  raised,  the  Scotch 


IN   ULSTER.  273 

retired  and  were  succeeded  by  the  Irish,  who  would  pay 
any  rent.  For  centuries  the  Catholics  have  been  sup- 
pressed. Even  now,  from  the  appointment  of  a  street 
scavenger  to  the  purchase  of  a  horse,  religion  is  brought 
in.  There  is  only  one  Catholic  in  any  public  board  in 
Belfast,  and  he  is  on  the  water  board.  There  is  not  a 
Catholic  official  in  County  Antrim,  and  in  the  rest  of 
Ulster  the  only  Catholic  officials  I  can  think  of  are  one  in 
County  Down,  and  the  Clerk  of  Newry.  Not  one  of  the 
forty  Town  Counsellors  of  Belfast  is  a  Catholic,  and  not 
one  is  a  Liberal,  except  two  who  were  elected  by  Con- 
servative votes  and  who  were  more  Tory  than  the  Tories. 
The  foremen  and  managers  of  all  the  mills  are  Protes- 
tants, and  in  the  banks  every  man  is  a  Protestant. 

"In  1870,  Professor  Galbraith,  John  Martin,  and  A. 
M.  Sullivan  established  a  branch  of  the  Home  Rule 
Association  in  Londonderry.  At  the  election  that  year 
I  was  Joe  Biggar's  canvassing  agent,  and  Joe  Biggar 
polled  89  votes  for  Home  Rule.  Now  the  seed  sown  by 
Galbraith  has  brought  forth  fruit,  and  Justin  McCarthy 
is  one  of  the  M.P.'s  for  Derry,  Sexton  one  of  the  M.P.'s 
for  Belfast,  and  Ulster  is  represented  by  seventeen  Na- 
tionalists to  sixteen  Unionists.  Such  is  the  progress  of 
Home  Rule  in  Protestant  Ulster. 

"  The  landlords  can  no  longer  keep  the  white  slaves 
they  did,  and  are  making  a  desperate  struggle.  Wherever 
you  go — if  you  go  where  Stanley  is,  and  where  he  is  no 
one  knows — if  you  want  to  kick  up  a  row  you  kick  over 
the  idols  of  the  people.  That  is  what  the  landlords  do 
with  the  Orangemen.  There  is  scarcely  a  parish  or  town 
land  in  Ulster  without  an  Orange  Hall,  for  which  the 
landlord  has  given  the  land  and  a  subscription.  There 
the  Orangemen  hold  their  tea-parties,  and  the  landlord 


2/4  IN'  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

or  his  head  bailiff  presides  A  year  ago  they  were  call- 
ing John  Morley  an  emissary  of  the  Pope,  and  Gladstone, 
Antichrist.  All  this  is  done  to  preserve  the  privileges  of 
a  few  landlords  and  their  friends.  Deprive  politics  of 
the  religious  element  and  there  would  not  be  the  smallest 
opposition  to  Home  Rule. 

"  The  talk  about  civil  war  is  nonsense.  The  moment 
you  place  her  Majesty's  troops  before  the  Orangemen, 
they  will  retire  ;  they  are  valiant  only  against  the  Pope. 
Is  Belfast,  with  the  counties  of  Armagh  and  Antrim, 
going  to  make  a  revolution  ?  One  third  of  Belfast  is  for 
Home  Rule,  and  a  great  part  of  Armagh  and  Antrim. 
Scotland  won't  interfere,  for  the  Scotch  are  Nationalists 
at  heart  and  will  get  Home  Rule  themselves  in  a  few 
years.  The  Nationalists  won't  want  to  fight,  for  they 
are  getting  all  they  want  without  fighting.  It  will  never 
be  left  to  the  people  on  each  side  of  the  Boyne  to  fight 
the  question  out.  Home  Rule,  if  it  is  granted,  will  have 
the  sanction  of  an  Act  of  Parliament  and  will  be  enforced 
by  the  imperial  army. 

"  Moreover,  the  Protestants  are  as  good  Irishmen  as 
the  Catholics.  The  last  struggle  we  had  for  freedom  was 
in  '98,  and  that  was  exclusively  a  Presbyterian  move- 
ment. Wolf  Tone,  who  founded  the  United  Irishmen, 
was  an  Ulster  Protestant,  and  so  was  Henry  Joy 
M'Cracken,  who  was  executed  in  Belfast.  The  leaders 
of  the  movement  of  1848  also  came  from  Ulster — Charles 
Duffy,  John  Martin,  and  John  Mitchel. 

"  In  a  plebescite,  even  among  the  Protestants,  I  don't 
believe  the  majority  for  Orangeism  would  be  large. 
Many  of  the  best  men  in  the  town  are  strong  Home 
Rulers,  but  not  openly,  for  fear  it  would  interfere  with 
their  business.     A  number  of  linen  concerns  have  gone 


IN   ULSTER.  275 

to  the  wall  lately.  Foreign  competition  is  driving  the 
trade  out  of  the  country.  If  it  was  n't  for  the  banks  the 
linen  trade  would  cease  to  exist.  The  merchants  are  in 
the  hands  of  the  banks,  and  the  banks  are  in  the  hands 
of  the  Orangemen.  The  least  movement  would  shake 
the  merchants,  and  that  is  the  real  reason  why  they  want 
to  keep  the  present  regime. 

"  Religious  persecution  under  Home  Rule  would  be 
impossible.  Here  are  three  or  four  million  Catholics 
within  a  few  miles  of  thirty  or  forty  million  Protestants. 
There  are  enough  Protestants  here  to  keep  the  Catholics 
very  well  employed  till  the  arrival  of  steamers  with  the 
English  army,  and  the  army  ought  to  come  if  ever  such 
a  diabolical  thought  entered  the  minds  of  the  Irish 
people. 

"  In  the  Home  Rule  Parliament  I  don't  expect  to  see 
a  single  national  body.  It  will  certainly  contain  a 
progressive  party  and  a  whig  or  conservative  party,  and 
they  will  keep  each  other  in  order. 

"  The  arguments  of  the  opposition  are  hearthstone 
arguments — arguments  true  only  in  Ulster, — not  prin- 
ciples that  will  sway  mankind." 

A  gentleman  of  a  different  profession,  who  has  gained, 
though  a  Catholic,  a  distinguished  social  position,  is  a 
pronounced  Home  Ruler,  and  his  opinion  on  the  land 
question  seemed  of  special  significance  :  "  The  Land 
Acts  were  absolutely  necessary.  It  is  essential  to  the 
prosperity  of  a  country  that  the  people  should  have  an 
interest  in  making  improvements.  The  provisions  of 
the  Land  Act  of  1881  were  approved  by  John  Stuart 
Mill. 

"  Suppose  two  men  take  two  adjoining  farms,  thirty 
acres  each,  at  ^i   an  acre.      A   keeps  the  land  in  the 


2/6  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

same  state  of  cultivation  in  which  he  took  it,  and  at  the 
end  of  twenty  years  he  is  paying  the  same  rent  and 
neither  better  nor  worse  off.  B  thoroughly  drains  the 
land  and  generally  improves  it,  and  at  the  end  of  twenty 
years  his  rent  is  doubled.  What  has  B  taken  from  the 
landlord  that  A  did  not  take  ?  For  what  is  the  extra 
payment  exacted  of  B  ?  Simply  for  the  labor  of  B. 
Such  additional  rent  is  a  tax  on  industry. 

"  In  the  matter  of  land  purchase  the  imperial  Parlia- 
ment might  fairly  vote  some  substantial  relief  to  the 
landlords.  They  might  give  them  ten  or  twelve  million 
pounds,  as  was  done  at  the  time  of  Church  Disestablish- 
ment, when  the  government  added  some  twelve  per  cent, 
to  the  purchase  money  of  the  life  interests  of  the  clergy." 

Let  us  take  now  the  point  of  view  of  a  master  in  one 
of  the  higher  educational  institutions  of  Belfast,  an  Irish- 
man of  experience  and  keen  observation. 

"  In  County  Down,"  he  began,  "  which  I  know  well, 
every  shilling  of  capital  expended  in  putting  the  land  in 
a  workable  condition  has  been  paid  by  the  tenant.  In 
England  the  reverse  is  the  case.  Even  if  the  English 
landlord  charges  the  tenant  interest  on  the  capital  in- 
vested in  improvements,  while  in  Ireland  some  compen- 
sation is  made  to  the  tenant  through  the  rents  being  on 
the  average  much  lower  than  on  similar  farms  in  Eng- 
land, the  fact  remains  that  the  English  tenant  is  charge- 
able with  the  interest  only  while  he  is  in  occupation, 
while  the  Irish  tenant,  on  the  other  hand,  so  soon  as  he 
ceases  to  be  occupier,  until  lately  lost  all  the  capital  he 
had  invested. 

"  Now  the  tenant  has  absolute  security  for  his  im- 
provements, but  it  will  take  a  generation  more  to  remove 
the  feelings  and  habits  that  the  old  system  developed. 


IN   ULSTER.  277 

"  All  interest  in  Home  Rule  will  certainly  die  out  in 
the  north,  when  once  the  land  question  is  settled.  The 
only  settlement  possible  is  by  establishing  a  peasant 
proprietory.  In  Seeley's  '  Life  of  Stein  '  there  is  some 
account  of  how  this  was  done  in  Germany, 

"At  the  same  time  something  needs  to  be  done  for 
the  landlords.  As  the  government  is  diminishing  their 
income,  it  ought  to  relieve  them  to  a  corresponding  de- 
gree from  the  burden  of  family  charges  and  mortgages. 
Interference  with  family  charges  is  generally  approved 
of,  but  mortgages  are  said  to  be  on  a  different  basis. 
Money  was  borrowed  and  spent,  it  is  said  ;  it  ought  then 
to  be  returned  without  regard  to  the  depreciation  of  the 
security.  But  would  not  this  plan  be  equitable  ?  Sup- 
pose a  capitalist  twenty  years  ago  lent  ^10,000  on  the 
security  of  an  estate,  for  which  he  gets  five  per  cent. 
Why  did  he  get  five  per  cent,  from  the  landlord  when 
he  could  have  got  only  three  and  a  quarter  per  cent,  from 
the  government  ?  Because  the  land  was  considered  a 
less  secure  investment  than  consols.  The  two  investments 
were  equivalent.  Now  if  you  give  the  mortgagee  con- 
sols sufficient  to  yield  him  the  same  income  that  his 
capital  would  have  produced  at  the  time  of  the  mortgage 
if  invested  in  consols,  surely  you  have  met  the  senti- 
mental objection  to  any  interference  with  mortgages. 

"  Antrim,  Down,  Derry,  Tyrone,  and  Armagh,  are 
the  strong  Protestant  counties,  and  they  are  the  flax- 
producing  and  the  linen-manufacturing  counties  The 
nearer  you  get  to  Belfast,  the  more  exclusively  Protes- 
tant the  country  is.  If  the  land  question  were  settled,  I 
believe  that  only  West  Tyrone,  South  Down,  and  per- 
haps South  Armagh  would  return,  even  for  a  time, 
Nationalist  members. 


2/8  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

"  Under  the  national-school  system  here,  the  govern- 
ment goes  so  far  as  to  provide  for  religious  instruction, 
with  the  simple  proviso  that  it  shall  be  so  given  as  to 
avoid  annoyance  to  the  minority.  Yet  what  did  Arch- 
bishop Walsh  say  the  other  day  when  he  addressed  four 
thousand  school  children  near  Dublin  ?  He  said  the 
Catholics  wanted  freedom  of  education  in  Ireland.  I 
asked  a  Catholic  inspector  of  schools  what  this  meant. 
He  said  :  '  The  freedom  we  want  is,  first,  to  get  a  govern- 
ment grant  without  being  obliged  to  adopt  the  Board 
school-books ;  secondly,  to  have  religious  instruction 
unlimited  as  to  time  and  place  ;  and  thirdly,  to  have  the 
right  to  exhibit  Catholic  emblems  in  the  school-rooms  at 
all  times.'  Now,  such  freedom  of  education  as  the  Catho- 
lics want  would  mean  in  all  parts  of  the  country  where 
the  Protestants  are  in  a  minority,  either  no  school,  or  a 
separate  Protestant  school,  or  only  Catholic  schools  ;  in 
other  words,  a  choice  for  the  Protestants  between  igno- 
rance, inferior  schools,  or  proselytizing  schools. 

"University  education  is  made  the  subject  of  another 
grievance.  The  Catholics  think  the  government  ought 
to  lend  or  give  money  to  found  a  Catholic  university,  to 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  hierarchy.  Is  there  any  country 
where  that  would  be  allowed  ? 

"  Religious  sects  here  have  all  perfect  liberty  to  estab- 
lish sectarian  schools  ;  but  why  should  the  government 
do  so? 

"  Under  a  Home  Rule  Parliament  this  would  unques- 
tionably be  done,  and  we  in  Ulster  would  have  to  bear 
half  the  expense. 

"  For  the  time  being  political  excitement  has  thrown 
Catholic  bigotry  into  the  background.  But  the  bigotry 
exists  notwithstanding.     In  South   Down,   for  instance, 


I.Y    ULSTER.  2/9 

if  Home  Rule  were  granted,  the  people  would  relapse 
into  complete  subserviency  to  the  priests  ;  and  it  would 
probably  be  the  same  throughout  Ireland. 

"At  Richhill  the  Orangemen  were  actually  drilling 
during  the  pendency  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  The 
Orangemen  are  chiefly  laborers  and  artisans.  Half  the 
conservatives  are  opposed  to  Orangeism,  and  the  higher 
up  you  go  in  the  social  scale  the  fewer  Orangemen  you 
find.  Three  quarters  of  the  Presbyterian  clergy  are, 
or  rather  were,  Liberals,  while  two  thirds  of  the  Episco- 
palian clergy  are  in  sympathy  with  Orangeism.  In  North, 
South,  and  East  Belfast  the  Orangemen  control  the 
elections,  without  regard  to  the  Tories. 

"  There  will,  I  think,  be  fighting  under  Home  Rule. 
There  will  be  riots  first,  then  repression,  and  then  great 
popular  excitement  and  a  general  rising.  The  beginning 
of  the  riots  here  last  year  was  significant,  one  Catholic 
workman  at  the  Queen's  Island  yards  saying  to  another, 
a  Protestant  :  '  Ah,  it  will  soon  be  so  that  none  of  your 
kind  will  be  able  to  earn  a  loaf  of  bread  in  the  country.' 
During  the  riots  the  police  were  regarded  by  the  Orange- 
men much  as  they  now  are  by  the  Nationalists.  They 
were  called  then,  *  the  foreign  police,'  *  the  French  police,' 
'  Morley's  murderers,'  as  they  are  called  now  '  Bloody 
Balfour's  myrmidons.' 

**  Where  you  have  a  large  dissenting  minority,  both 
sides  are  always  intensely  bigoted.  In  France  and  Bel- 
gium the  Protestants  are  comparatively  few  in  number 
and  much  scattered,  so  there  is  little  danger  of  intoler- 
ance or  persecution.  A  central,  controlling,  impartial 
government  like  that  of  the  imperial  Parliament  is  far 
more  likely  to  hold  the  scales  of  justice  even  between 
two  such  bigoted  factions  than  any  local  body." 


280  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

The  editor  of  the  principal  Unionist  paper  may  finally 
be  quoted,  as  a  practical  and  clever  man  of  affairs  who  is 
most  competent  to  define  the  position  of  his  party. 

"The  majority  of  the  farmers  in  Ulster,"  he  said  de- 
liberately, "  are  opposed  to  Home  Rule,  but  the  tempta- 
tion is  strong,  and  there  is  danger  that  if  the  Unionists 
do  not  offer  them  something  of  material  benefit  they  will 
vote  against  them  at  the  next  election.  As  yet  there  are 
not  a  thousand  Protestant  votes  in  the  north  for  the 
Nationalists,  and  this  shows  how  wonderfully  they  have 
resisted  the  enormous  bribes  they  have  been  offered. 

"  The  landlords  have  been  extreme  even  in  Ulster,  and 
have  offset  the  benefit  of  free  sale  by  raising  the  rents. 
But  there  are  many  districts  where  there  is  no  margin  for 
rent  at  all,  not  through  any  fault  of  the  landlords,  but  on 
account  of  the  extreme  prolificacy  and  the  uneconomical 
habits  of  the  people.  Those  who  shout  most  for  Home 
Rule  would  be  no  better  off  if  they  got  it,  for  they  have 
not  the  enterprise  and  the  capital  necessary  to  raise  them 
above  a  hand-to-mouth  existence. 

"The  present  Nationalist  leaders  are  smart,  clever 
dogs,  but  without  any  experience  in  affairs  of  govern- 
ment ;  most  of  them  are  good  as  destructive  politicians 
but  would  not  be  likely  to  succeed  as  constructive  states- 
men. William  O'Brien,  for  instance,  is  one  of  the  few 
thoroughly  honest  Nationalists,  and  he  is  fanatically  hon- 
est ;  but  he  is  a  dreamy,  poetical  fellow  who,  if  he  sees 
poverty  anywhere,  assumes  it  to  be  the  fault  of  either  the 
government  or  the  landlords. 

"  If  we  had  Home  Rule  to-morrow,  I  should  expect  the 
situation  would  be  trying  enough  for  the  period  of  my 
lifetime.  I  don't  fear  there  would  be  much  robbery  or 
shooting  :  but   however   fairly  a   Parliament  at  Dublin 


IN   ULSTER.  281 

might  govern,  you  could  n't  get  an  Orangeman  of  the 
extreme  Protestant  party  to  believe  it,  and  there  would 
be  endless  turmoil.  As  a  result,  the  credit  of  the  country 
would  suffer.  It  would,  however,  be  humanly  impossible 
that  a  Dublin  Parliament  should  be  perfectly  fair.  There 
has  been  too  much  bitterness  in  this  agitation  for  the 
people  to  become  quickly  just  and  wise.  There  would 
be,  first  of  all,  a  clean  sweep  of  all  the  officials.  That 
would  not  promote  efficiency  in  the  public  service.  A 
Dublin  Parliament  would  be  sure  to  affect  Ulster  injuri- 
ously. For  one  thing,  there  would  probably  be  a  national 
poor-rate  instead  of  the  existing  local  poor-rates,  and 
prudent  Ulster  would  have  to  pay  for  the  improvidence 
of  Kerry  and  Clare,  as  well  as  of  Donegal  and  Cavan. 

"  What  would  be  necessary  to  make  Home  Rule  in 
any  way  successful  would  be  the  existence  of  trained 
men  to  draw  upon  for  officials.  If  we  began  with  an 
elective  council,  a  grand  jury  for  each  county  or  prov- 
ince, with  full  control  over  local  affairs,  in  ten  or  twenty 
years  we  should  have  some  trained  men  who  had  had 
some  responsibility,  and  then  if  they  wished  to  come  to- 
gether they  could  do  so  with  comparatively  little  danger. 
In  Scotland  the  people  would  go  in  for  Home  Rule  sim- 
ply because  it  would  bring  certain  practical  advantages  ; 
but  here  they  would  rather  have  Home  Rule  with  greater 
misery  than  prosperity  without  it.  It  is  a  question  here 
of  sentiment  rather  than  of  self-interest. 

"Self-interest  requires  certain  changes.  Whigs  and 
Tories  have  been  equally  short-sighted  in  not  appointing 
local  boards  to  act  on  the  spot  upon  local  questions. 
This  is  a  real  grievance.  The  last  local  Police  Act,  for 
instance,  cost  us  probably  about  ^10,000. 

"  I  am  a  Presbyterian  of  Scotch  descent,  but  I  don't 


282  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

believe  that  Home  Rule  would  be  as  bad  as  many  think, 
though  I  am  certain  that  it  would  be  so  bad  that  I  would 
rather  be  for  a  long  time  in  some  other  country. 

"As  to  resistance  to  Home  Rule.  There  is  this  differ- 
ence between  the  northern  and  the  southern  Irish  :  In 
the  south  they  blacken  their  faces  and  fight  at  night  ; 
but  here  they  fight  in  the  open,  and  face  to  face.  I  am 
not  an  Orangeman,  but  it  is  true  that  individuality  here 
is  stronger  than  anywhere  else  in  Ireland.  I  don't  be- 
lieve there  is  the  organization  among  the  Orangemen 
that  was  reported,  but  if  they  did  turn  out  they  would 
cause  a  riot  very  different  from  the  riots  last  year,  when 
the  police  only  had  to  do  with  isolated  and  usually  un- 
armed crowds.  The  Orangemen  have  no  good  leader. 
The  two  members  for  Belfast  are  not  competent  to  lead 
an  army  of  chickens,  much  less  to  head  a  revolt.  There 
will  be  nothing  like  civil  war,  but  merely  very  serious 
rioting.  In  the  last  riots  I  saw  men  marching  in  the 
streets  of  a  class  far  superior  to  any  I  expected  to  see 
there,  and  I  was  amazed  at  the  sympathy  shown  them  by 
the  better  citizens." 

SOME    COUNTRY    NATIONALISTS. 

I  met  him  in  the  train  as  he  was  returning  from  the 
great  fair  of  Ballinasloe.  He  was  a  burly,  rough, 
amiable  man,  and  was  soon  chatting  confidentially.  "  I 
live,"  he  said,  "  two  miles  from  Dundalk,  My  farm  is 
near  the  sea,  and  the  soil  is  so  light  that  we  always  have 
a  hard  time  if  we  don't  get  rain  in  June.  There  are 
only  about  twenty  tenants  on  the  estate,  which  belongs 
to  the  Rev.  Sir  Cavendish  Foster.  He  lives  in  England, 
and  we  seldom  see  him,  but  both  the  landlord  and  his 
agent  have  always  been  kind  and  indulgent,  never  press- 


IN   ULSTER.  283 

ing  us,  and  they  have  made  many  improvements,  giving 
us  timber  and  slates  when  we  built,  and  iron  gates  for 
our  fields,  and  sharing  in  the  expense  of  draining. 

"  All  the  landlords  about  us  have  been  giving  reduc- 
tions for  the  last  three  years.  Last  Christmas  we  asked 
for  a.  reduction  of  30  per  cent,  on  the  half  year's  rent 
then  due,  but  it  was  refused  so  we  none  of  us  paid  any 
rent  till  June,  when  the  landlord  gave  in.  My  tenancy 
is  one  from  year  to  year,  and  I  have  not  yet  gone  into 
the  land  courts,  but  I  intend  to  go  now. 

"  My  rent  is  very  high — ^2.  5.?.  for  the  arable  land  per 
Irish  acre.  I  raise  chiefly  corn  and  turnips  on  half  the 
farm,  and  graze  the  other  half.  The  oat  crop  this  year 
is  almost  a  total  failure.  The  turnip  crop  is  a  third  of  the 
average.  Hay  is  about  half.  For  cattle  there  is  scarcely 
any  price  to  be  got. 

"  There  will  be  no  peace,  I  think,  till  the  landlords  are 
bought  out,  but  I  would  give  them  fair  compensation. 
A  land-purchase  bill  would  be  very  good  if  it  allowed  the 
tenants  to  buy  at  about  sixteen  years'  purchase  of  the  re- 
duced rents.  We  offered  to  purchase  our  farms,  but  the 
landlord  would  n't  sell. 

"  I  am  a  Catholic  and  believe  in  Home  Rule.  There 
are  many  reforms  necessary.  The  Lord-Lieutenant  nomi- 
nates three  men  for  high  sheriff  of  each  county,  and  they 
decide  among  themselves  who  shall  accept.  The  high 
sheriff  then  has  the  appointment  of  the  grand  jurors. 
In  County  Lowth  the  Catholics  are  to  the  Protestants  in 
the  proportion  of  four  to  one,  and  yet  this  summer  there 
was  only  one  Catholic  on  the  grand  jury.  The  grand 
jury  levies  the  county  cess,  and  appoints  all  the  cess  col- 
lectors and  the  jail  officials.  The  levy  is  often  excessive. 
I  pay,  for  instance,  ^^29  a  year  in  county  cess,  and  only 


284  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

-£6  or  ^7  in  poor-rates,  which  are  levied  by  the  Unions. 
Rehiring  county  officials  are  paid  extravagant  pensions, 
almost  equal  to  their  salaries,  and  these  take  some 
^3,000  a  year  out  of  the  county  cess. 

"  The  magistrates  are  appointed  by  the  Lord-Lieuten- 
ant. They  are  apt  to  be  extremely  unpopular,  and 
many  of  them  own  no  property  and  are  totally  incom- 
petent. 

"  For  awhile  Home  Rule  appointments  might  be  made 
for  partisan  purposes,  in  a  spirit  of  tit  for  tat,  but  that 
would  right  itself  in  time.  As  to  local  appointment  of 
the  police,  which  some  Nationalists  urge,  I  don't  believe 
in  that  at  all.  They  would  favor  their  neighbors.  The 
police  should  always  be  appointed  by  the  central 
authority. 

"  The  grand-jury  system,  then,  should  be  replaced  by 
elective  boards,  and  the  government  should  be  decentral- 
ized. But  we  want  Home  Rule  above  all,  because  it  is 
our  right.  Canada  has  Home  Rule,  and  why  should  n't 
we  have  it  ? 

"  The  danger  of  rash  legislation  under  Home  Rule  is 
exaggerated.  The  farmers  on  the  whole  are  exceedingly 
conservative  ;  and  I  believe  that  if  we  had  Home  Rule 
to-morrow  Parnell  would  lead  a  strong  conservative  wing. 
I  think,  too,  that  if  the  land  question  were  settled,  the 
farmers  would  be  unlikely  to  agitate  for  any  thing  else, 
even  for  Home  Rule.  They  are  exceedingly  selfish. 
They  are  even  opposed  to  the  building  of  these  laborers' 
cottages.  They  would  become  as  conservative  then  as 
now  they  are  the  reverse. 

"  As  to  the  Protestants  not  wanting  Home  Rule  :  the 
Presbyterians  about  me  are  as  thick  as  bats  ;  they  don't 
dare  to  vote  or  to  go  to  meetings  of  the  League  ;  but  yet 


IN   ULSTER.  285 

they  are  very  willing  to  accept  all  that  the  Catholics  can 
get  for  them." 

At  Cavan  I  left  my  new  acquaintance,  to  spend  a  day 
in  that  old-fashioned,  badly  paved,  dirty  little  town. 
The  chief  public  building  is  an  enormous  jail  with  walls 
like  the  walls  of  a  fortress.  The  old  waiter  at  the  hotel 
spoke  mournfully  of  the  good  old  days  when  landlords 
were  rich  and  spent  their  money  freely,  but  the  secretary 
of  the  League,  McFinley,  in  his  spirit-grocery,  seemed 
unusually  full  of  hope  and  determination. 

"  We  are  all  Home  Rulers  here,"  said  he.  "  At  the  last 
election,  in  December,  1885,  I  was  agent  for  Biggar,  who 
stood  against  Saunderson,  the  best  landlord  and  largest 
employer  of  labor  in  the  neighborhood,  and  Biggar  had 
a  majority  of  6,564  out  of  a  total  electorate  of  10,000. 

"  One  of  the  absurd  anomalies  of  our  government  is  that 
the  county  cess,  over  ten  shilUngs  in  the  pound,  is  levied 
by  the  grand  jury,  in  which  the  farmers  are  absolutely 
unrepresented." 

"  Might  not  that  be  changed  without  a  revolution  in 
the  form  of  government  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Certainly,"  he  answered;  "but  the  people  think  it 
best  to  concentrate  their  exertions  on  one  reform  once  for 
all,  instead  of  having  year  by  year  to  push  for  little  re- 
forms, one  by  one. 

"  The  general  belief  is  that  a  Home  Rule  Parliament 
would  be  sufficiently  conservative  to  deal  with  perfect 
justice  with  the  land  question.  The  influence  of  the 
Catholic  clergy  is  conservative  and  all-powerful. 

"  The  present  land  system  must  be  done  away  with. 
The  land  this  season  has  not  produced  any  rent,  and  for 
the  last  two  seasons  we  believe  it  has  been  paid  out  of 
the  capital.  Every  effort  has  been  made  to  meet  the 
landlords. 


286  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

"  The  increase  of  deposits  in  the  banks  does  n't  prove 
that  the  people  are  prospering  ;  the  money  would  have 
been  invested  in  the  land  instead  if  the  farmers  had  been 
prosperous. 

"  Have  not  transactions  in  land  been  discouraged  ? 
Certainly.  Why  not  ?  A  high  price  paid  for  the  tenant 
right,  the  result  of  competition,  might  have  led  the  land- 
lord to  think  his  rents  were  fair,  however  excessive  they 
might  be. 

"  Land  purchase,  even,  is  not  all  that  is  needed. 
There  are  any  number  of  holdings  in  County  Cavan  of 
five  or  six  acres  each.  The  League  programme  is,  in 
such  cases,  to  transfer  a  number  of  the  tenants  to  land 
now  uncultivated,  and  to  throw  two  or  more  of  these 
little  plots  together  to  make  one  holding  of  a  profitable 
size. 

"Would  I  deprive  the  landlords  of  their  demesne 
lands?  Certainly.  If  one  of  these  swell  landlords 
wants  to  keep  a  park,  or  a  cover,  or  a  pleasure-ground, 
as  he  is  diverting  the  land  from  the  use  Providence  de- 
signed it  for— the  support  of  the  human  race, — he  ought 
to  pay  for  it  a  tax  equal  to  the  rent  that  average  tenants 
would  pay  for  it.  One  individual  ought  not  to  have  a 
thousand  or  five  thousand  acres  within  his  demesne 
walls,  while  thousands  outside  are  starving  for  want  of 
it.  These  and  other  similar  questions  should  be  left  to 
the  collective  wisdom  of  the  country  to  settle,  though 
perhaps  some  of  the  suffering  farmers  may  be  rather 
severe.  This  will,  possibly,  drive  the  landlords  away, 
but  there  are  already  any  number  of  residences  vacant 
throughout  the  country,  for  the  Land  Acts  have  whittled 
down  the  rents  so  much  that  the  landlords  could  n't  keep 
♦heir  places  up.     There  were  two  tobacco  factories  here  : 


IN   ULSTER.  287 

one,  kept  by  a  local  landlord,  was  closed  a  year  or  two 
ago  ;  and  the  other,  kept  by  Mr.  Kennedy,  was  trans- 
ferred to  Dublin. 

"  Under  Home  Rule,  there  will  have  to  be  local  control 
of  the  police.  It  is  their  interest  now  to  make  themselves 
as  unpleasant  as  possible.  So  if  there  is  a  street  row 
anywhere  the  people  side  against  the  police,  or  at  least 
are  indifferent.  Mrs.  Curtin  of  Mollahiffe  might  be  un- 
safe if  the  police  were  appointed  by  her  neighbors,  but 
why  deprive  thirty-one  counties  of  a  right,  because  in  the 
thirty-second  it  might  be  abused  ? 

"  Now  policemen  and  detectives  are  often  the  heads  of 
local  secret  societies,  paid  by  the  secret-service  fund. 
They  often  push  on  the  more  hot-headed  young  men  to 
commit  outrages.  The  Sunday  after  the  Crimes  Act  was 
passed,  last  spring,  a  meeting  of  the  secret  societies  was 
held  near  Cavan  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  ;  and 
before  six,  full  particulars,  with  the  names  of  all  the 
people  present,  were  lodged  in  the  police  head-quarters. 

"  As  to  the  Fenians,  many  of  them  are  good  men  and 
the  people  owe  much  to  them.  When  there  was  nothing 
like  law  between  landlord  and  tenant,  the  dread  of  the 
Ribbonman's  bullet  or  of  a  Fenian  rising  kept  many  a 
landlord's  conscience  open  to  the  law  of  God.  Now, 
however,  all  are  blended  with  the  Nationalists. 

"  It  is  an  herculean  task  in  one  year  to  settle  the  fric- 
tion of  centuries.  If  Mr.  Gladstone's  bill  had  been 
passed  as  it  was,  there  would  have  been  amendments 
needed  within  three  years  ;  and  what  is  wanted  is  a  final 
settlement. 

"  Parnell,  at  the  beginning  of  the  movement,  ordered 
us  to  seize  the  Municipal  Boards  and  Boards  of  Guardians, 
and  now  the  people  have  done  so  and  become  educated 


288  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

by  the  responsibility.  Delay  has  been  a  good  thing  for 
us,  and  will  secure  a  more  satisfactory  bill  in  the  end. 
Tim  Healey,  the  Irish  platform  orator,  and  Tim  Healey, 
the  Attorney-General,  would  be  very  different  people. 

"  Many  of  the  Unions  have  been  mismanaged,  and 
that  is  used  as  an  argument  against  Home  Rule.  But  the 
reverse  is  often  the  case.  At  Old  Castle,  in  County 
Meath,  less  than  twenty  people  received  relief  under  the 
Conservatives,  and  now  the  Nationalist  Board  is  giving 
out-door  relief  to  over  three  hundred  without  any  increase 
in  the  rates.  The  only  thing  the  Nationalist  Boards  have 
done  has  been,  where  an  unjust  landlord  has  evicted  a 
number  of  people  and  made  paupers  of  them,  to  give 
them  one  or  two  pounds  each  a  week,  half  of  which  the 
landlord  pays  ;  and  this  is  only  fair,  since  the  landlord  has 
made  them  paupers. 

"  In  this  county,  the  Catholics  are  nearly  three  quar- 
ters of  the  whole  people,  and  outside  of  the  landlords 
and  their  immediate  dependents,  not  five  per  cent,  are 
opposed  to  Home  Rule.  Lough,  a  leading  Protestant 
merchant  here,  is  openly  with  us,  and  many  others  are 
so  in  secret.  You  must  not  confound  Protestantism  with 
Orangeism,  for  Orangeism  is  to  Protestantism  much 
what  Fenianism  is  to  Catholicism." 

A  few  miles  farther  on  was  Clones,  a  fairly  prosperous 
town,  with  several  streets  straggling  down  the  slope  of  a 
high  hill  surmounted  by  a  large  Catholic  church.  As  in 
other  country  towns  no  business  seems  to  be  done  ex- 
cept on  the  weekly  fair  day,  when  the  farmers  throng  the 
narrow  little  streets,  and  are  succeeded  the  next  morning 
by  a  troop  of  commercial  travellers  eager  to  fill  their  or- 
ders while  the  money  is  in  the  till.  The  people  seemed 
peaceful   and    contented,  perhaps  for  the  reasons  sug- 


IN    ULSTER.  289 

gested  by  T.  Coffey,  a  leading  publican  and  farmer. 
"  Sir  Thomas  B.  Leonard,"  he  explained,  "  my  landlord, 
has  sold  the  whole  of  his  agricultural  property  here  to 
the  tenants,  at  from  eighteen  to  twenty  years' purchase.  I 
bought  at  the  lowest  price  of  any,  seventeen  and  a  half 
years'  purchase,  and  while  I  used  to  pay  ;^  16  a  year  rent 
I  am  now  purchasing  by  yearly  payments  of  ^11  for 
forty-nine  years. 

''  The  landlords  about  here  are  good  and  have  had  no 
trouble  with  their  tenants,  though  we  are  all  Home 
Rulers.  There  is  neither  religious  excitement  nor  boy- 
cotting here,  and  the  people  generally  would  buy  if  the 
landlords  would  sell." 

SOME    ORANGEMEN. 

The  Orange  Society,  though  comparatively  modern, 
has  its  roots  in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  siege  of 
Derry  was  early  celebrated  by  local  feasts  and  proces- 
sions. In  1688  a  secret  society  was  formed  among  the 
adherents  of  William  of  Orange,  in  the  army  on  Houns- 
low  Heath,  and  was  perpetuated  as  a  semi-military  asso- 
ciation in  County  Antrim.  For  a  century  afterwards  the 
Protestants  of  the  north  were  perpetually  alarmed  by 
fears  of  risings  among  the  Catholics,  who  had  been  dis- 
possessed of  their  ancient  properties  ;  both  parties  or- 
ganized intermittently,  and  in  1795  a  riot,  grandiloquent- 
ly called  the  Battle  of  the  Diamond,  took  place  between 
the  rival  secret  societies — the  Defenders,  who  raided 
Protestant  farmers  for  arms,  and  the  Peep-of-Day  Boys, 
who  used  to  get  up  early  to  recapture  them.  The  out- 
rages that  followed  were  so  alarming  that  the  more  re- 
spectable Protestants  began  to  organize  semi-vigilance 
societies  after   the  fashion  of   Masonic    lodges,    calling 


290  IN   CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

themselves  Orange  Boys  ;  and  three  years  later,  when  the 
Nationalist  feeling  revived  under  the  influence  of  the 
French  Revolution,  and  the  Presbyterians  of  the  north 
united  with  the  Defenders  of  the  south  in  the  highly  cen- 
tralized association  of  the  United  Irishmen,  the  Orange 
lodges  were  merged  into  the  Orange  Association.  "  We 
associate,"  ran  the  preamble  of  the  old  constitution,  "  to 
the  utmost  of  our  power  to  support  and  defend  his  Ma- 
jesty George  the  Third,  the  Constitution,  the  Laws  of 
the  Country,  and  the  succession  to  the  Throne  in  his 
Majesty's  illustrious  house,  being  Protestants  ;  for  the 
defence  of  our  persons  and  properties  and  to  maintain 
the  peace  of  our  country  ;  and  for  these  purposes  we 
will  be  at  all  times  ready  to  assist  the  civil  and  military 
powers  in  the  just  and  lawful  discharge  of  their  duty. 
.  .  .  We  further  declare  that  we  are  exclusively  a  Prot- 
estant Association  ;  yet  detesting  as  we  do  any  intolerant 
spirit,  we  solemnly  pledge  ourselves  to  each  other,  that 
we  will  not  persecute  or  upbraid  any  person  on  account 
of  his  religious  opinions."  ' 

During  the  Revolution  of  1798  the  Orangemen  per- 
formed important  military  and  police  service.  Two 
years  later  they  were  generally  opposed  to  the  Union 
with  England,  from  a  fear  of  Catholic  Emancipation 
and  the  consequent  downfall  of  the  Protestant  ascend- 
ancy. During  the  reign  of  William  IV.  the  society  was 
the  subject  of  a  parliamentary  investigation,  and  the 
oaths  were  subsequently  modified.  When  the  disestab- 
lishment of  the  Irish  Church  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, the  most  violent  and  revolutionary  language  was 
used  by  the  Orange  leaders,  and  in  1886,  during  the  pen- 
dency of  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  the  Orangemen  began  to 
'  Published  for  the  use  of  Orangemen  only,  1799. 


IN    ULSTER.  291 

drill  nightly  in  Belfast,  at  Rich  Hill,  and  at  Armagh. 
The  speeches  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  Ballynapage 
Orange  Hall  in  Belfast  this  last  autumn,  to  an  immense 
and  enthusiastic  audience,  show  the  high-water  mark  of 
Orange  feeling  at  the  present  moment.  "  We  do  desire," 
said  Colonel  Saunderson,  M.P.,  "to  perpetuate  memories 
of  the  past,  which  we  believe  reflect  the  glory  of  the  race 
to  which  we  belong  and  the  religion  which  we  profess, 
but  vv-e  do  not  do  it  with  the  unchristian  purpose  of  per- 
petuating discord  and  hatred  in  this  our  country,  . 
but  we  do  it  that  we  may  teach  our  children,  as  we  have 
learned  ourselves,  that  if  a  day  should  ever  come  when 
we  are  to  be  confronted  by  a  similar  danger  and  a  similar 
foe  we  are  ready  to  perform  the  same  deeds  again.  .  .  . 
We  require  now  an  organization  more  than  ever  we  did 
yet.  Our  opponents  are  organizing,  and  therefore  I  im- 
press upon  you  and,  through  you,  upon  all  my  Orange 
brethren  who  may  read  these  words  that  I  employ,  that 
no  effort  should  be  spared,  and  no  stone  should  be  left 
unturned,  to  make  the  Orangemen  of  Ulster  prepared  to 
meet  a  day  of  danger,  and  it  may  be  a  day  of  battle."  ' 

The  opinions  of  Orangemen  when  taken  alone  are  per- 
haps more  temperate  than  such  words  would  imply. 

"The  great  objection  we  in  Ulster  have  to  Home 
Rule,"  said  a  landlord,  one  of  the  recognized  leaders  of 
the  Orangemen,  "is  that  we  have  inherited  certain  rights 
as  British  citizens,  and  we  believe  these  rights  will  not 
be  secure  under  a  Dublin  Parliament.  We  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  men  who  have  come  to  the  front  in  the 
National  movement  are  people  from  whom  we  could 
expect  fair,  sound,  and  reasonable  legislation. 

"Parnell  is  a  conservative  Nationalist ;  but  can  Parnell 
^  Belfast  Nezosletler,  October  iS,  1887. 


292  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

lead  his  party?  The  people  will  insist  on  returning  their 
own  favorites.  No  guaranties  would  be  of  any  value  ; 
the  Irish-Americans  are  at  the  back  of  the  Irish  in  Ire- 
land, and  they  are  parties  to  no  guaranties. 

"  The  recent  Land  Acts  have  been  unjust,  not  because 
they  have  made  our  property  worthless,  but  because  they 
have  deprived  us,  without  compensation,  of  proprietary 
rights  which  many  of  us  bought  not  many  years  ago  with 
hard  cash.  If  such  things  are  done  in  the  green  tree, 
what  will  be  done  in  the  dry  ? 

"Again,  prejudices,  religious  and  social,  are  so  violent 
here  that  no  Irish  Parliament  could  be  impartial.  I 
know,  on  good  authority,  that,  four  or  five  years  ago,  a 
priest  in  County  Down  said  from  the  altar  :  '  The  time 
will  come  when  there  will  be  not  a  landlord  nor  a 
Protestant  in  Ireland.' 

"The  present  local  boards  are  mere  jobs,  and  a  Home 
Rule  Parliament  would  be  of  a  similar  character. 

"  All  English  laws  are  based  on  the  theory  that  the 
majority  of  the  people  will  obey  and  enforce  them. 
Here  the  reverse  is  true.  The  people  disobey  the  laws 
and  do  every  thing  to  hinder  their  execution.  The 
juries,  who  should  be  merely  judges  of  the  fact,  make  them- 
selves interpreters  of  the  laws.  In  such  a  state  of  society 
of  what  good  would  be  any  constitutional  limitations  ? 

"  Some  people  suggest  that  Ireland  be  given  a  consti- 
tution like  that  of  Massachusetts,  with  the  imperial 
rights  enforced  by  federal  courts.  But  such  a  system 
has  been  successful  in  America  only  because  the  United 
States  are  composed  of  so  many  States  that  the  interest 
of  no  one  State  preponderates.  We  are  a  small  country 
next  a  very  much  larger  and  richer  one,  so  that  there  can 
be  no  balance  between  the  two. 


IN   ULSTER.  293 

"  It  has  been  suggested  that  Ulster  be  given  its  own 
Home  Rule  legislature.  The  feeling  abou/  that  sugges- 
tion in  Ulster  is  creditable.  The  people  believe  they 
would  do  very  well  as  Ulstermen,  but  they  don't  want  to 
cut  themselves  off  from  the  large  loyalist  minority  in  the 
rest  of  Ireland,  who  would  then  be  left  at  the  mercy  of 
the  majority. 

"  We  are  loyal  to  the  laws  of  Engla.id  ;  if  England 
chooses  to  transfer  us  to  the  control  of  a  Parliament  at 
Dublin,  we  shall  owe  that  Parliament  no  allegiance,  for 
allegiance  cannot  be  transferred,  and  we  shall  not  obey 
it.  Such  is  the  simple  position  of  the  Orangemen,  and  I 
suppose  there  are  over  a  hundred  thousand  of  us  in 
Ulster. 

"  If  we  refused  to  obey  or  pay  taxes  to  a  Dublin  gov- 
ernment, it  could  n't  force  us  to,  for  it  would  not  have 
the  control  of  the  police,  and  half  the  military  would 
side  with  us.  The  Unionists  would  begin  to  drill, 
and  would  have  in  the  Orangemen  the  nucleus  of  an 
army.  In  the  Belfast  riots,  it  was  the  street  boys  and 
not  the  Orangemen  who  fought,  and  more  serious  riots 
have  happened  in  the  past,  when  the  Queen's  Island 
men  have  turned  out  in  force  with  their  riveting  ham- 
mers to  strike  and  their  bolts  to  throw.  In  the  case  of 
such  a  rising  as  Home  Rule  would  occasion,  the  move- 
ment would  be  taken  up  by  the  leaders  and  would  go 
from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  society." 

Portadown  is  a  smoky,  bustling  manufacturing  town, 
the  centre  of  an  intensely  Orange  district.  There  is  not 
even  a  branch  of  the  National  League  in  the  place.  The 
Orange  Hall  is  a  simple  stone  building,  but  the  number 
of  lodges  that  meet  there  regularly  or  occasionally  is 
enormous.     In   Portadown  itself  there   are  thirty-three 


294  I^  CASTLE   AND    CABIN. 

lodges,  and  within  a  radius  of  a  little  over  nine  miles 
there  are  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  more — thirty-four 
in  Lurgan,  twenty-nine  in  Killylea,  twenty-two  in  Tan- 
deragee,  eleven  in  Richhill,  twenty-seven  in  Legoniel, 
eleven  in  Gilford,  and  twenty-three  in  Armagh.  The 
attitude  of  the  Orangemen  is  that  of  stubborn,  but  rather 
gloomy,  determination.  '*  I  don't  know  how  we  can  pre- 
vent Home  Rule,  but  I  do  say  this,  that  we  will  not  have 
it."  This  was  the  deliberate  statement  of  one  of  the 
Town  Commissioners,  and  the  feeling  of  Portadown 
could  not  possibly  be  expressed  with  more  precision  in  a 
hundred  pages.  Those  Protestants  who  are  not  Orange 
are  even  more  pessimistic  still.  "  People  like  me,"  a 
substantial  shopkeeper  remarked,  "will  quietly  slip 
away ;  and  those  who  stay,  will  never  be  at  peace.  I 
have  seen  them  chasing  the  police  here  like  goats  before 
them." 

It  is  the  fear  of  unjust  treatment  by  the  Catholics  and 
not  any  theory  or  sentiment  for  the  Union  that  arrays  the 
Orangemen  against  Home  Ruje.  One  who  protested 
most  loudly  that  the  Irish  flag  was  blue,  not  green,  and 
that  *'  the  Church  of  Ireland  "  was  properly  termed  the 
Catholic  Church,  since  it  dated  from  apostolic  times  and 
had  never  protested  against  any  thing,  confessed  that 
whal  Ireland  most  needed  was  "  education— education 
to  prepare  the  people  for  Home  Rule." 

"  We  are  partners  in  a  mill  near  here,"  said  one  of  two 
table  companions  at  Larne,  where  I  was  waiting  the  sail- 
ing of  my  steamer.  "  We  began  as  common  mill  hands, 
and  gradually  saved  money  till  we  were  able  to  set  up  a 
bleachery  of  our  own.  We  have  won  prosperity  by  our 
industry,  and  don't  wish  to  help  support  these  National- 
ists in  a  Dublin  Parliament  or  in  new  political  offices. 


IN   ULSTER.  295 

The  south  of  Ireland  people  are  lazy  and  thriftless.    We 
won't  have  Home  Rule." 

"  We  don't  believe  we  should  get  fair  play  from  a  Home 
Rule  Parliament.  With  only  sixteen  members  out  of 
eighty-nine  or  more,  we  should  be  completely  swamped. 
We  will  fight  first. 

"  If  we  believed  that  our  interests  as  British  citizens 
would  be  secure,  we  should  not  of  course  object  to  Home 
Rule  ;  but,  as  it  is,  we  are  a  divided  people,  and  oil  and 
water  would  mix  better  than  we  do. 

"  During  the  riots  the  manager  of  a  flax  company  near 
here  was  attacked  by  some  hundreds  of  his  hands, 
simply  because  he  was  a  Protestant,  though  a  good  and 
generous  man,  and  we  had  to  organize  parties  to  sit  up 
with  guns  in  our  hands  to  guard  him  at  night. 

"Well,  we  can  hold  our  own  against  the  Nationalists, 
and  we  will  fight,  if  need  be,  to  keep  our  liberty." 


CONCLUSION. 

The  reader  has  been  listening  to  many  voices  ;  much 
of  what  they  say  is  contradictory  ;  and  not  a  single  word, 
perhaps,  is  beyond  question  wholly  impartial  and  unpar- 
tisan  ;  but  in  spite  of  the  confusion  some  facts  seem  to 
be  definite  and  undeniable. 

From  a  distance  the  various  classes  in  Ireland  seem 
separated  one  from  another  by  wide  gulfs  of  feeling 
and  interest.  Close  at  hand  they  are  seen  to  contain 
within  themselves  every  variety  of  opinion,  to  be  all 
sincerely  in  love  with  Ireland,  and  all  dissatisfied  with 
the  present  system  of  government.  In  the  event  of 
"  Home  Rule  "  there  is  no  danger  of  actual  civil  war, 
and  a  Dublin  Parliament,  so  long  as  it  holds  the  scales  of 
justice  even,  will  be  criticised  and  ridiculed  but  not  forci- 
bly resisted.  No  general  exodus  of  the  merchants  is 
expected.  Except  under  compulsion  a  merchant  does 
not  go  out  of  business,  and  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
distilleries  and  iron  manufactories  about  Belfast  there 
is  little  business  now  transacted  in  Ireland  that  could 
be  transferred  to  another  country.  The  landlords  also 
will  remain  for  the  most  part,  if  they  can.  Only  those 
will  leave  the  country  who  are  driven  by  poverty  or 
persecution  to  live  or  to  earn  a  living  in  a  more  busi- 
ness-like or  tolerant  community.  Home  Rule,  if  it  does 
come,  will  be  given  a  fair  trial  even  by  those  who  are 
hopeless  of  its  success. 

The  poverty  is  unquestionably  extreme  ;  the  propor- 
296 


CONCL  USION.  297 

tion  of  paupers  to  the  population  is  from  three  to  four 
times  greater  than  in  England  ;  not  only  do  the  farmers 
generally  complain  of  failing  crops  and  falling  prices, 
but  the  shopkeepers  and  commercial  travellers,  usually 
a  conservative  class,  are  also  in  despair  ;  the  landlords, 
who  were  once  large  employers  of  labor  are  becoming 
bankrupt,  and  the  laborers  who  used  to  depend  upon 
them  can  find  no  work.  It  is  true  that  the  drink  bill  of 
Ireland  is  enormous,  and  that  the  deposits  in  Irish  banks 
were  never  larger  than  to-day,  but  drunkenness  is  as 
often  the  consequence  as  the  cause  of  misery,  and  in 
prosperous  times  a  deposit  yielding  one  per  cent,  is  not 
a  popular  investment.  Irish  poverty,  when  it  is  not  laid 
to  the  account  of  the  government,  is  attributed  to  Ameri- 
can competition  in  grain  and  flour,  a  sufficient  cause  and 
a  true  one. 

The  general  desire  for  Home  Rule  is,  it  would  seem, 
a  natural  result  of  the  general  poverty.  The  most  pro- 
nounced Nationalists  do  not  rest  their  claims  on  purely 
sentimental  grounds,  but  argue  that  one  nation  cannot 
govern  another  nation  well,  and  then  point  to  the  dis- 
tress of  the  farmers,  the  incessant  emigration,  the  ab- 
sence of  manufactories.  The  farmers  and  the  priests, 
who  usually  belong  to  the  farming  class,  believe  in  Home 
Rule,  because  they  think  it  will  mean  the  purchase  by  the 
tenants  of  their  holdings  at  a  minimum  price,  and  pro- 
tective duties  on  American  grain  and  English  manufac- 
tures. In  Galway  the  shopkeepers  and  fishermen  expect 
a  Dublin  Parliament  to  build  a  railroad  to  Clifden,  piers 
along  the  coast,  and  boats  for  those  who  need  them.  In 
Donegal  the  farmers  look  for  a  redistribution  of  land 
now  occupied  by  landlords  or  graziers,  and  a  rapid  de- 
velopment of  the  resources  of  the  country.     In  Athlone 


298  IN  CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

and  Kilkenny  vast  industrial  schools  are  expected  to 
train  the  people  in  manufacturing  processes  under  gov- 
ernment supervision.  In  many  places  the  railroads  are 
complained  of,  and  it  is  suggested  that  they  should  be  con- 
trolled by  an  Irish  government.  The  people,  in  a  word, 
are  Home  Rulers,  because  they  wish  to  see  Ireland  pros- 
per and  to  share  in  her  prosperity.  The  only  means  sug- 
gested to  this  end  are  the  reduction  of  taxation  and  the 
creation  of  industries  more  profitable  than  agriculture, 
and  these  benefits  they  think  will  come  only  under  Home 
Rule- 

A  few  fanatics  there  are  who  would  prefer  Home  Rule 
and  greater  poverty  to  a  continuance  of  the  Union  and 
less  poverty,  but  they  are  clearly  in  a  minority.  In  pri- 
vate and  serious  conversation  a  priest,  a  farmer,  a  shop- 
keeper, or  a  laborer  invariably  denounces  the  government 
for  some  particular  grievance  that  seems  to  him  prevent- 
able and  that  touches  his  own  pocket  or  the  pockets  of 
his  neighbors.  In  these  primitive  instincts  an  Irishman 
is  not  unlike  other  people,  and  of  this  human  tendency, 
that  in  the  course  of  time  is  sure  to  influence  conduct, 
many  of  the  more  radical  agitators  are  unquestionably 
afraid.  It  is  significant  that  in  Donegal,  in  Tyrone,  and 
elsewhere,  local  leaders  admit  that  the  farmers  would 
lose  interest  in  Home  Rule  if  the  land  question  were  set- 
tled, and  that  in  Ballinasloe  and  Cork  it  is  noticed  that 
the  laborers  are  satisfied  where  they  have  employment. 

Certain  grievances  are  admitted  to  exist  by  men  of  all 
shades  of  political  opinion  :  the  amount  of  the  law  costs 
in  proceedings  in  the  land  courts,  which  often  equals  or 
exceeds  the  amount  of  the  reductions  granted  ;  the  ab- 
sence of  local  authority  to  incorporate  companies  for 
purposes  of  local  improvement,  to  run  tramways,  build 


CONCL  USION.  299 

bridges,  or  to  furnish  towns  with  gas  or  water-works  ;  the 
non-representative  character  of  the  grand  juries  ;  the 
excessive  centralization  of  the  government,  which  keeps 
it  wholly  uninfluenced  by  Irish  popular  opinion,  which 
fills  too  frequently  important  offices  with  men  unknown 
or  without  reputation  or  even  hated  in  Ireland,  and 
which  affords  Irish  Nationalists  of  ability  and  political  in- 
fluence no  opportunity  to  acquire  that  sense  of  responsi- 
bility which  can  be  given  only  by  administrative  expe- 
rience. 

The  recent  Land  Acts  are  certainly  so  revolutionary  in 
character  that  they  would  be  held  unconstitutional  in 
any  State  in  this  country,  but  as  yet  they  have  not  been 
given  a  fair  trial  by  the  people.  Free  sale  of  the  tenant 
right,  and  purchase  under  the  various  acts  of  the  land- 
lord's interest,  have  been  generally  discouraged  by  the 
Nationalist  leaders.  Farms  have  been  boycotted  often 
for  the  most  trivial  reasons  :  the  spite  or  greed  of  a 
neighbor,  the  political  opinions  of  the  tenant,  the  dis- 
charge or  hiring  of  a  laborer.  Throughout  the  country 
are  to  be  seen  fields  black  with  rag-weeds,  or  white  with 
thistles.  In  such  conditions  farming  can  be  successful  only 
by  accident.  The  reopening  of  judicial  leases,  however 
equitable  in  principle,  has  had  the  effect  of  finally  stop- 
ping any  improvements  by  either  landlord  or  tenant,  and 
of  encouraging  the  tenants  to  regard  any  land  act,  how- 
ever advantageous  to  them,  as  a  temporary  makeshift, 
certain  if  disregarded  to  give  place  to  something  better. 
Such  tactics  are  abhorrent  to  the  survivors  of  the  move- 
ment of  1848,  and  to  the  priests  of  the  older  generation  ; 
but  they,  or  the  sentiments  that  inspire  them,  are  preva- 
lent throughout  Ireland. 

Among  the  Catholics  at  the  present  time  there  is  little 


300  IN   CASTLE   AND   CABIi. 

apparent  religious  intolerance.  In  the  south  and  south- 
west there  are  not  a  few  Protestants  holding  elective  of- 
fices in  Catholic  communities,  and  I  di^  not  hear  a  word 
in  Ireland  spoken  by  a  Catholic  against  a  Protestant,  as 
such.  In  Connemara  and  Donegal  some  feeling  had  been . 
plainly  excited  among  the  Catholics  by  attempts  at 
proselytizing.  In  the  north  and  in  Dublin  shopkeepers 
and  others  were  full  of  fear  of  Catholic  aggression,  and 
in  the  south  ignorant  Protestant  laborers  and  intelligent 
Protestant  landlords  were  as  one  in  believing  that  mur- 
der and  outrage  would  be  the  result  of  Catholic  suprem- 
acy. Such  alarm  seems  unfounded ;  but  one  danger 
exists,  and  that  a  grave  one — the  opposition  of  the  Cath- 
olics to  any  but  a  Catholic  system  of  education.  "  There," 
said  Archbishop  Walsh,  pointing  to  four  thousand  chil- 
dren of  the  Christian  Brother  Schools,  "  there  is  the  pro- 
test of  the  Catholic  people  of  Dublin  against  the  main- 
tenance in  this  Catholic  country  of  a  system  of  education 
in  which  religion  is  shut  out  from  the  opportunity  of  ex- 
ercising with  unrestrained  freedom  her  legitimate  in- 
fluence in  the  education  of  the  young."  As  the  freedom 
that  is  desired  is  the  repeal  of  the  "conscience  clause," 
forbidding  religious  instruction  and  the  exhibition  of 
emblems,  except  at  certain  hours,  it  would  seem  that  in 
the  matter  of  education  the  religious  line  is  sharply 
drawn. 

"  Home  Rule,"  a  Parliament  at  Dublin,  with  exclusive 
control  of  all  Irish  matters,  is  proposed  as  a  means  for 
restoring  prosperity  to  Ireland.  This  it  is  expected  to 
do  by  settling  the  land  question,  by  fostering  domestic 
industries  through  protection  or  a  system  of  loans  and 
bounties,  by  founding  technical  schools,  by  reducing 
taxation,  and  by  restoring  law  and  order. 


CONCLUSION.  301 

The  "  Land  Question  "  would  severely  tax  the  skill  of 
a  body  of  men  with  little  knowledge  of  political  economy. 
Mr.  Michael  Davitt  and  many  other  Nationalists  would 
approach  the  subject  with  confidence,  but  few  landlords 
would  trust  themselves  willingly  to  their  tender  mercies. 
A  just  price  is  seldom  paid  by  a  purchaser  who  can  fix 
his  own  terms  and  enforce  their  acceptance.  Even  lead- 
ing Nationalists  see  the  danger  and  impolicy  of  such  a 
course.  "  There  can  be  no  doubt,"  Mr.  Timothy  Har- 
rington wrote  me,  "  as  to  the  eagerness  of  the  Irish 
Nationalist  party  to  have  the  land  question  settled  by 
the  imperial  Parliament,  and  settled  as  early  as  possible. 
We  are  all  extremely  anxious  that  a  question  calculated 
to  excite  so  much  feeling  and  bring  so  many  opposing  in- 
terests into  collision  should  not  be  left  to  be  settled  in 
the  early  and  therefore  trying  days  of  a  new  legislature. 
No  sincere  Irishman  could  honestly  entertain  any  other 
opinion."  Such  is  well  known  not  to  be  the  opinion  of 
Mr.  Michael  Davitt,  and  these  notes  would  seem  to  show 
that  many  of  the  local  leaders  would  not  consider  favor- 
ably any  land  legislation  proposed  by  the  imperial 
government.  It  is  also  clear  that  Irish  statesmen  are 
now  confronted  by  a  very  pretty  dilemma.  The  land 
question  should  be  settled  before  Home  Rule  is  estab- 
lished, and  yet  no  guaranty  for  the  purchase  money 
is  suggested  by  the  Nationalists,  except  a  guaranty  by  a 
Home  Rule  Parliament.  The  creation  of  a  peasant  pro- 
prietary is,  moreover,  not  the  work  of  a  year,  nor  even  of 
a  few  years,  and  is  apparently  impossible,  except  under 
the  continuous  supervision  of  a  strongly  centralized  and 
stable  government. 

"  Protection  "  is  an  article  of  faith  in  the  economical 
creed'  of  the  great  majority  of  Irishmen.     The  farmers 


302  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

look  to  protective  duties  on  cereals  and  cattle  to  restore 
the  prices  of  the  last  decade  ;  the  shopkeepers  and  many- 
landlords  share  the  hopes  of  the  farmers,  in  whose  pros- 
perity or  poverty  they  are  partners  ;  and  everybody  in 
Ireland  believes  that  Irish  manufactures  cannot  be  estab- 
lished without  protection  against  the  manufactured  goods 
of  England  and  the  Continent, — everybody,  that  is,  with 
the  significant  exception  of  the  only  successful  manufac- 
turers, the  Ulster  linen  manufacturers,  and  the  owners 
of  the  woollen  and  tweed  mills  of  West  Meath.  The 
protective  system  is  now  on  its  defence  in  the  United 
States,  and  the  chief  argument  of  its  defenders  is 
that  our  home  market  is  more  valuable  than  the  for- 
eign market,  and  at  all  costs  must  be  retained.  This 
argument  does  not  apply  to  Ireland ;  England  and 
the  Continent  are  the  chief  markets  for  Irish  linen,  Amer- 
ica is  the  chief  market  for  Irish  woollen  goods.  For 
manufactures  of  a  high  grade  there  is  no  demand  in 
poverty-stricken  Ireland  ;  for  manufactures  of  a  low 
grade  even  the  demand  is  restricted  to  the  necessaries  of 
life.  If  any  manufactures  cannot  be  profitably  conducted 
in  Ireland  without  "protection,"  it  is  because  those  manu- 
factures cannot  be  profitably  sold  at  the  same  price  as 
similar  articles  of  foreign  make.  If  any  manufactures 
shall  be  profitably  conducted  in  Ireland  with  "protec- 
tion," it  will  be  because  those  articles  are  bought  at 
greater  cost  than  similar  articles  now  are  by  the  consum- 
ers, the  Irish  people.  The  farmers  and  laborers  who 
cannot  pay  their  shop  bills  now  will  not  be  benefited  by 
an  increase  in  such  bills  in  future.  But  the  farmers  will 
be  recompensed  by  the  higher  price  of  agricultural  pro- 
ducts. They  may  be,  and  in  that  case  the  bills  of  all 
other  men  in  Ireland  will  be  still  further  increased  by 


CONCLUSION.  303 

the  amount  of  the  farmers'  extra  profits  ;  while  the  graz- 
iers certainly  will  be  ruined  by  a  duty  on  live  stock,  for 
their  market  is  England  and  the  prices  in  the  English 
market  will  not  be  affected  by  "  protection  "  in  Ireland, 
which  can  raise  the  cost  of  beef  and  mutton  to  the  inhab- 
itants of  Ireland  but  to  no  one  else.  "  Protection,"  then, 
may  not  affect  for  the  worse  the  Irish  farmers,  but  it  will 
starve  the  laborers  unless  the  manufacturers  can  afford 
to  pay  higher  wages  than  are  paid  at  present.  This  they 
cannot  do  without  raising  proportionally  the  prices  of 
their  goods.  The  foreign  market  will  then  be  finally 
lost,  and  those  manufactures  only  will  survive  in  Ireland 
that  are  needed  to  supply  the  home  market.  Less  money 
and  goods,  instead  of  more,  will  flow  into  Ireland  from 
without,  and  the  only  effect  of  ''  protection  "  in  the  course 
of  time  will  have  been  a  redistribution  of  Irish  property 
among  Irishmen  in  Ireland. 

"  The  bounty  system,"  which  some  regard  more  favor- 
ably than  protection,  is  identical  with  it  in  principle,  and 
produces,  though  more  rapidly,  similar  results.  The 
system,  with  regard  to  beet-root  sugar,  has  been  recently 
discussed  in  Europe  and  seems  now  utterly  discredited. 
It  would  in  Ireland  require  an  immediate  increase  in 
taxation,  an  increase  less  indirect  than  that  exacted  by 
protection,  and  on  that  account  it  is  less  likely  to  com- 
mend itself  to  an  Irish  Parliament. 

Loans  to  fishermen  for  boats  and  schooners  and  nets, 
grants  for  piers  and  harbors,  for  prizes  and  exhibitions, 
for  railroads  to  open  up  the  country,  for  experiments  and 
surveys  to  discover  mines  and  quarries,  for  founding  in- 
dustrial schools  and  colleges, — such  expenses  cannot 
easily  be  incurred  by  the  most  patriotic  representatives 
of  people  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 


304  I^   CASTLE  AND   CABIN. 

Taxation,  even  though  lightened  by  a  great  reduction 
in  the  cost  of  police,  of  which  a  part  is  now  borne  by  the 
imperial  exchequer,  is  not  likely  to  be  materially  reduced 
for  many  years  after  the  peaceful  establishment  of  "  Home 
Rule."  If  it  is  accompanied  or  preceded  by  the  creation 
of  a  peasant  proprietary,  and  the  claims  of  the  landlords 
have  not  been  completely  extinguished,  the  national 
guaranty  of  the  purchase  money  or  of  interest  upon  it 
must  seriously  impair  the  credit  of  the  Irish  government. 
Expenses  for  bounties,  grants,  and  loans  will  have  to  be 
met  by  borrowing  at  high  interest  or  by  direct  imposts  ; 
in  either  case  the  people  must  pay.  In  certain  respects 
the  government  of  Ireland  will  cost  more  than  it  does 
now.  The  members  of  the  Irish  Parliament  will  certainly 
have  to  be  paid  salaries  from  the  Irish  treasury  ;  several 
new  offices  must  be  created  ;  and  if  any  large  measures 
of  a  socialistic  character  are  undertaken  by  the  govern- 
ment, such  as  the  nationalization  of  the  land,  or  the 
management  of  the  railroads,  the  number  of  officials  and 
the  amount  of  public  salaries  must  be  increased  very 
considerably. 

One  difficulty,  then,  in  determining  the  question  of 
Home  Rule  that  cannot  be  called  theoretical,  is  the  fact 
that  it  is  doubtful  whether  "  Home  Rule  "  would  restore 
prosperity  to  Ireland,  even  if  the  Dublin  Parliament 
were  to  do  all  that  the  people  expect  of  it ;  while  it  is 
certain  that  any  practical  pecuniary  benefit  would  be 
long  delayed.  The  faith  that  the  Irish  people  have  had 
in  the  power  of  the  imperial  government  to  create  pov- 
erty or  wealth  by  legislation,  to  change  the  laws  of  na- 
ture by  Act  of  Parliament  has  been  transferred  to  an 
imaginary  Home  Rule  government.  No  change  of 
government  can  effect  a  change  in   the   tendencies  of 


CONCL  USION.  305 

natural  processes,  whether  they  are  called  economic  laws, 
physical  laws,  or  the  laws  of  God.  If  all  the  land  in  Ire- 
land were  to-morrow  divided  equally  among  all  the  Irish 
tenant  farmers,  it  could  raise  the  standard  of  living  in  Ire- 
land only  for  a  few  years  In  no  country,  in  no  county  or 
town  in  any  country,  can  the  standard  of  living  be  perma- 
nently raised,  or  the  population  increase  and  maintain 
the  same  standard,  without  "  the  development  there  of 
some  industry,  the  discovery  of  some  local  springs  of  in- 
dustry, a  new  appreciation  of  previously  unrecognized 
facilities  for  the  application  of  more  efficient  processes  of 
labor."  '  So  long  as  agriculture  continues  to  be  the  chief 
industry  of  Ireland,  no  legislation  can  improve  the  con- 
dition of  its  people  and  save  them  from  the  fate  which 
between  1880  and  1883  drove  from  Norway,  that  land  of 
peasant  proprietors,  one  twentieth  of  its  inhabitants. 
The  one  practical  benefit  of  Home  Rule,  if  wisely  ad- 
ministered, will  be  the  restoration  of  law  and  order,  un- 
til such  time  as  recurring  poverty  shall  reproduce  the 
elements  of  disorder  and  lawlessness. 

The  more  or  less  theoretical  difficulties  or  dilemmas  in 
the  way  of  Home  Rule  are  many  and  serious.  Of  the 
various  nationalities  inhabiting  the  British  Islands  the 
population  and  wealth  of  England  is  so  much  the  largest 
and  the  greatest  that  a  federal  union  between  them,  a 
union  that  recognizes  the  equal  claim  of  each  nationality, 
as  in  the  United  States  Senate,  is  preposterous.  The 
interests  of  England  must  prevail  in  all  questions  in 
which  those  interests  are  involved,  for  the  same  reason 
that  the  interests  of  New  York  would  prevail  in  the 
federal  government  if  the  United  States  consisted  only 
of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Rhode  Island.  No  sys- 
1  Mr.  L.  Courtney  in  The  Niitcteenlh  CeiUttry. 


306  IN  CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

tern  of  Home  Rule  would  be  practicable,  therefore,  that 
gives  an  Irish  government  any  control  of  the  excise  ; 
and  yet  it  is  for  that  purpose  that  the  Irish  mainly  desire 
Home  Rule. 

The  analogy  of  Canada  and  Australia  does  not  apply 
to  the  case  of  Ireland.  The  secession  of  Canada  or  its 
cession  to  the  United  States  at  some  future  period  is  con- 
templated with  complacency  by  many  English  statesmen, 
as  is  the  independence  of  Australia  by  Mr.  Labouchere. 
That  the  cession  of  Ireland  to  France,  or  its  indepen- 
dence, would  be  ruinous  to  England  until  the  advent  of 
the  age  of  universal  peace,  proves  conclusively  the  inac- 
curacy of  such  an  analogy.  The  integrity  of  Ireland  is 
essential  to  the  independent  power  of  England  in  a  sense 
in  which  the  integrity  of  no  other  territory  is  essential  to 
it.  The  union  between  the  two  islands  must  therefore 
be  peculiarly  close,  and  the  links  must  be  forged  of  some- 
thing less  brittle  and  more  material  than  sentiment.  Any 
local  government,  then,  accorded  to  Ireland  must  possess 
only  strictly  defined  and  delegated  powers,  and  the  im- 
perial Parliament  or  some  other  central  body  must  retain 
the  authority  and  the  means  to  enforce  any  measure 
judged  necessary  for  the  general  safety. 

Certain  principles  of  justice,  impartially  enforced  by 
law,  are  recognized  as  conditions  of  modern  civilization. 
Intercourse  between  England  and  Ireland  would  be 
hindered,  just  men  without  reason  would  be  sacrificed, 
and  the  public  conscience  would  be  outraged,  if  laws 
subversive  of  such  principles  were  suffered  to  be  enacted 
in  Ireland.  The  power  of  a  Home  Rule  Parliament 
should  then  be  still  further  restricted  by  constitutional 
provisions  in  the  nature  of  a  bill  of  rights  prohibiting 
legislation  in  violation  of  contracts,  taking  private  prop- 


CONCL  USION.  307 

erty  for  public  use  without  compensation,  imposing  un- 
equal or  unjust  taxation,  or  discriminating  against  any 
individual  or  class.  A  court,  appointed  by  the  central 
authority,  should  then  be  established,  to  go  on  circuit 
throughout  Ireland  and  adjudicate  all  causes  involving 
constitutional  questions,  or  questions  touching  imperial 
or  other  reserved  rights.  Such  a  Parliament,  it  is  worth 
observing,  would  be  unable  to  enact  laws  similar  to  the 
Land  Acts. 

The  grant  to  Ireland  of  a  Home  Rule  Parliament, 
however  constituted,  and  with  powers  however  limited, 
involves  a  complete  revolution  in  the  system  of  govern- 
ment in  Great  Britain.  Parliament  now  is  the  autocratic 
committee  of  a  highly  centralized  democracy,  with  un- 
limited and  undefined  powers.  The  local  affairs  of  Ire- 
land cannot  be  removed  from  the  discretionary  inter- 
ference of  Parliament  without  limiting  the  powers  of 
Parliament.  Is  such  limitation  possible  ?  It  may  be 
suspected  that  a  Home  Rule  Parliament,  so  long  as  the 
government  of  Great  Britain  remains  otherwise  un- 
changed, will  and  can  exist  only  during  good  behavior^ 
at  the  pleasure  of  the  capricious  British  democracy. 

If  the  consideration  of  Home  Rule  is  postponed  till 
after  the  settlement  of  the  land  question,  it  is  likely  that 
many  years  will  pass  before  an  Irish  Parliament  sits  in 
Dublin.  In  the  meantime,  if  Irish  discontent  is  to  be 
allayed,  certain  changes  should  be  made  in  the  manage- 
ment of  Irish  affairs  and  at  once.  The  grand-jury  sys- 
tem is  obsolescent,  and  grand  juries  should  be  made 
elective,  or  should  be  superseded  by  representative  bodies 
with  more  varied  powers.  It  is,  moreover,  absurd  that 
the  promoters  of  schemes  of  purely  local  improvement 
should  have  to  apply  to  Westminster  for  incorporation. 


308  IN   CASTLE  AND    CABIN. 

These,  and  all  the  more  obvious  Irish  grievances,  would 
be  removed  by  an  extension  to  Ireland  of  the  Local 
Government  Bill,  now  under  discussion  in  Parliament. 
By  that  bill  county  councils  are  to  be  elected  by  the 
ratepayers  for  three  years,  to  add  to  themselves  one 
fourth  their  own  number  from  the  ratepayers  to  sit  for 
six  years.  They  are  to  exercise  "  the  existing  adminis- 
trative powers  of  the  justices  in  respect  of  county  rates 
and  financial  business,  county  buildings,  county  bridges, 
the  provision  and  management  of  the  county  lunatic 
asylums,  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  reforma- 
tory and  industrial  schools,  the  granting  of  licences  for 
music  and  dancing,  the  granting  of  licences  for  the  sale 
of  intoxicating  liquors."  They  are  to  have  "  the  control 
and  maintenance  of  all  main  highways,  the  power  of 
making  all  provisional  orders  under  the  Pier  and  Harbor 
Acts,  the  Tramways  Act,  the  Electric  Lighting  Act,  and 
the  Gas  and  Water-works  Facilities  Acts  as  regards  com- 
panies ";  and  a  variety  of  other  powers  not  of  a  judicial 
character  may  be  transferred  to  them  by  the  government 
of  the  day  by  a  mere  Order  in  Council,  subject  to  no 
control  except  Parliament  and  the  common  law.  The 
powers  specified  are  so  extensive  as  to  make  the 
office  of  County  Councillor  one  of  sufficient  dignity, 
responsibility,  and  experience  to  attract  men  of  ability  ; 
and  if  a  salary  were  attached  to  the  office,  as  it  should 
be  in  Ireland,  it  would  be  the  means  of  turning  many  a 
brilliant  demagogue  into  a  useful  public  servant.  Some 
abuses  and  jobs  might  be  perpetrated  in  the  begin- 
ning ;  but  the  people  would  soon  learn  by  experience 
that  few  luxuries  are  so  expensive  as  abuses  and  jobs  in 
the  granting  of  public  franchises  or  the  expenditure  of 
the  public  money. 


CONCL  USION.  309 

In  the  matter  of  the  appointment  of  judicial  officers  in 
Ireland,  it  would  be  wise  for  the  government  to  con- 
sult with  the  Nationalist  Members  of  Parliament,  and 
whenever  possible  to  adopt  their  suggestions.  It  is  not 
always  easy  for  a  man  of  legal  training  to  decide  a  ques- 
tion of  law  on  grounds  purely  sentimental,  and  a  few 
gross  miscarriages  of  justice  might  yet  be  counterbal- 
anced by  an  increased  respect  for  law  among  the  people. 
All  public  offices  should  of  course  be  filled  by  Irishmen, 
and  Irishmen  not  specially  connected  with  Dublin  Cas- 
tle. 

Finally,  with  generosity  and  discretion  the  govern- 
ment should  promote  works  of  public  improvement  in 
Ireland  ;  loans  should  be  granted  for  the  extension  of 
railroads  in  Connaught,  for  the  building  of  piers,  for  the 
purchase  of  boats  and  nets  for  fishermen, — and  the  lia- 
bility for  such  loans  should  not  fall  only  on  the  districts 
chiefly  benefited.  In  every  way  technical  education 
should  be  fostered  ;  and  primary  education  should  be 
made  compulsory,  even  though  it  have  to  be  largely  sec- 
tarian and  Catholic. 

As  the  farmers  become  occupiers,  as  the  laborers  find 
employment,  as  the  people  by  controlling  their  own 
local  affairs  learn  to  blame  themselves  rather  than  the 
English  government  for  local  discomforts,  the  number  of 
Irishmen  in  Ireland  will  increase  who  will  be  perfectly 
contented  with  a  measure  of  Home  Rule  far  less  sweeping 
than  that  proposed  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  at  the  same 
time  they  will  become  more  and  more  competent  to 
operate  with  benefit  to  themselves  and  without  injury 
to  others  any  measure  of  Home  Rule  that  shall  be 
granted. 


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